


That's How Easy Love Can Be

by lady_ragnell



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Teachers, Elementary School, F/M, Friendship, Holidays, M/M, Nondenominational Anonymous Holiday Gift Exchange, Secret Santa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-08
Updated: 2013-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-04 02:21:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 28,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1075400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_ragnell/pseuds/lady_ragnell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Valjean's idea of doing a nondenominational anonymous holiday gift exchange shakes things up among the staff of Musain Elementary School. With everyone trying to figure out their presents (and their feelings) and an attempted production of <i>The Nutcracker</i> coming up, the holiday season is certainly going to be busy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Four Weeks Until the Holiday Party

**Author's Note:**

> All relationships mentioned in the tags are in a pre-state at this point, but rest assured they are coming.
> 
> With thanks to **nonisland** for helping me come up with the idea and figure out who should teach what and to **Samy** for prodding.
> 
> Title from "ABC" by the Jackson Five because sometimes I really can't help myself.
> 
> Not on a set schedule, but I am planning to have it finished by Christmas.

The Tuesday before Thanksgiving, no one is paying attention in staff meeting. They’re all ready for a four-day weekend, and more to the point, they’ve all seen off more than a hundred children who were _also_ ready for a four-day weekend, clutching their handprint turkeys and singing “Over the River and Through the Woods” because Fantine teaches it every year in music class.

Some of the fifth graders might also be a bit traumatized because Enjolras got fed up and snarled about colonization and capitalism, but he’s going to worry about that after break when he gets his usual complaints. For right now, all he wants is to go home, get out a book that doesn’t have cartoons in it, and not surface until Sunday afternoon.

Valjean, however, is smiling around at them all from the front of the room, not dismissing them like he usually would after they finished any new business. “I normally wouldn’t do this until after Thanksgiving break, but Thanksgiving is late this year, and I want to give you all the time.” Enjolras’s heart sinks, and Valjean takes a top hat out from underneath the library desk. “This year, among the staff we’re doing a nondenominational anonymous holiday gift exchange at our winter party.”

“Secret Santa?” says Courfeyrac, already perking up from his exhausted slump. R, playing with his tablet in a way that suggests he’s doodling instead of taking notes, snorts, and Enjolras scowls even though Grantaire obviously isn’t looking at him.

“Nondenominational anonymous holiday gift exchange,” replies Valjean, with the air of someone who has practiced the phrase multiple times. Enjolras opens his mouth to object and gets a gentle shake of the head from Valjean, who may be a benevolent principal but definitely makes it clear who’s in charge. “If you’re only buying a gift for one of your co-workers, as I know you would be anyway because you’re all friends, then you have more money left over to donate to charity or give to friends or save for other purposes. A nondenominational anonymous holiday gift exchange seemed like the best solution.”

“And be creative,” Joly says with a grin. “We all know each other way too well to stick with the boring things.”

“I’ll go first!” says Courfeyrac. “What are the rules?”

“No putting a name back unless you pull out your own, and no switching afterwards. The present must be given sometime before the holiday party, which is on the twentieth this year. If you don’t want to remain anonymous, you don’t have to, but I encourage it so that revealing at the holiday party is more fun, and I do ask you all not to share who you have widely, because people will start putting it together.” Valjean shakes the hat around a little and walks over to Courfeyrac. “You get us started, then.”

Courfeyrac pulls his name with a flourish and grins down at it, obviously already planning something. Combeferre, next to him, sighs and offers his hand for the hat next, and it goes around the circle after that. Éponine makes a tragic face and Marius looks like he wants to cry (probably hoping for Cosette) and Bahorel starts laughing and keeps going long enough to alarm everyone, but most people seem relatively pleased with who they get.

There are only two names remaining in the hat when it gets to Enjolras—one for him, and one for Valjean. “You first,” Valjean offers, and Enjolras fishes one of the slips out.

Enjolras loves his friends, and he’s lucky to work with them, doing something he loves. He would have given all of them presents anyway, or donated to charity in their names and given them chocolate, which was his strategy last year. He’d be perfectly happy pulling almost anyone’s name, so as silly as it feels, he isn’t too worried when he looks at the slip of paper.

The paper, of course, says, in cheerful green ink, _Grantaire – art_. Valjean raises his eyebrows at whatever Enjolras’s face shows, so Enjolras does his best to look neutral. When he sneaks a look around, only Combeferre and R are looking at him, since everyone else is exchanging looks as though they’re already trying to guess who has whom, which is why anonymous exchanges never work. Combeferre smiles like he knows what’s going on, and R just grins in that way that always means he’s mocking something Enjolras has done before he turns back to Éponine.

“All of you go home and enjoy your break,” Valjean says after a moment, which is the cue for everyone to start excited chatter about the holiday exchange and their plans for Thanksgiving. Enjolras packs his bag with the worksheets he has to correct for fifth and sixth grade language arts and the history book reports from the sixth graders and makes it his goal to get out before anyone starts asking him if he has any ideas for his recipient.

It isn’t that he dislikes Grantaire. He never has, he doesn’t dislike any of his co-workers, especially since several of them were college friends. If nothing else, the way the students all seem to worship the ground Grantaire walks on would make Enjolras respect him, but he’s never really found a way to be friends with him, either. Anyone else, he would have some idea of what to give them (books for Combeferre, anything both pretty and useful for Cosette, colorful ties for Courfeyrac), but R is more difficult. The obvious gift is art supplies, nicer ones than he uses with the kids, but Enjolras was at his apartment once bringing Bossuet a book and he already has seemingly endless amounts.

He’ll just have to think about it, in between his work with the students. There’s plenty of time until the holiday party.

*

Bahorel really likes working at Musain Elementary. Mostly that’s down to the actual work, the kids and the administration both—not many principals would let him teach a special gym class for fourth grade girls and spend months just teaching them self defense, after all (fourth grade boys get extra time with Éponine talking about their feelings, because fourth grade boys need it). Bahorel refuses to be that gym teacher who plays dodgeball constantly and traumatizes kids for life (the occasional dodgeball-related trauma may still occur, because he isn’t a _saint_ ), and Musain makes it easy.

His co-workers are a benefit too: smart, committed, hot (Bahorel thinks the PTA could make a killing selling a sexy holiday calendar of all of them to all the students’ mothers, but there are probably legal reasons against that, which is why Bahorel is not a lawyer). However, his co-workers are also _really stupid_. In the little incestuous circle of their friends, none of the people who are actually in love with each other have tried to _do_ anything about it.

So when he pulls Joly’s name out of the hat for their Secret Santa (Bahorel believes in calling a spade a spade. And sometimes a trowel a spade. Bahorel does not know a lot about gardening tools), he already knows exactly what he’s going to give him. It will take maneuvering, of course, but Bahorel is way more subtle than everyone gives him credit for.

The thing is that Joly, Musichetta, and Bossuet are all stupid in love with each other, and either they think a _ménage a trois_ will get them fired or they’re just pining for the sake of pining, neither of which Bahorel thinks are acceptable. And so he is going to give Joly Bossuet and Musichetta for Christmas. Not that he’s just going to kidnap and wrap them up in bows in Joly’s bed, tempting as that thought is, but that’s what’s going to happen nonetheless.

Jehan interrupts him, wandering over with a smile on his face and a barrette shaped like a turkey holding his hair back because he believes in embracing the stereotypes about kindergarten teachers and novelty clothing. “You look like you’re plotting something.”

“I think we’re all plotting things.” Bahorel jerks his head in Enjolras’s direction to illustrate his point. “Aren’t you?”

“Maybe.” Jehan completely fails at not grinning and drops his bag on the table across from Bahorel. “I’m trying to decide if Valjean realizes the inevitable disaster he’s invited on the staff with this. This is going to be worse than that time with the prank war.”

Bahorel laughs and stands up, scooping the meeting agenda and the paper he was writing his to-do list on into a pile, where they will join the pile of papers on his little-used desk and he will never see them again. “Or hey, maybe it will work out perfectly, in regular holiday-movie style.”

Jehan gives the room a sweeping gesture that manages to encompass Enjolras, sneaking out so nobody can ask him awkward questions, Marius, staring longingly at Cosette instead of listening to Valjean ask him something about his filing system, and Éponine frowning indiscriminately around at everyone. “Does that seem likely?”

Bahorel grins. “I’ll take my chances. Now, any reason you came over here, other than to proclaim possible disaster?”

Jehan blinks and then nods. “I just wanted to know if you were still planning on doing the Nutcracker thing with the kids, because if you do I want to read the storybook version to my kids pretty soon.”

“Yeah, Fantine and I are planning on it, pretty much the only ever collaboration between music and gym ever. I’m probably going to have your kids being the mice.”

“If anyone bites anyone else I am making you take over kindergarten for the rest of the year.”

“They won’t bite, I’ve got that fifth-grader tapped to be the Rat Queen, you know, the one they’re all kind of in love with?”

Jehan grins. “Maybe I’ll ask her to come in and read the story with me, then they’ll behave forever. Who are you getting to do Clara?”

“One of the third graders. It should be a pretty good production. If maybe not the most traditional balletic kind. Then I’d have to ask R, and he would have to say no. Heartbreak and humiliation all around. We’ll have to stick with what we’ve got.”

“Well, we can get the whole school involved—if all the kids are involved both through music and PE, we should get R and the kids doing sets, and Cosette helping with costumes, she sews, and maybe we could convince Valjean to play Drosselmeyer, sort of a cameo thing.”

Bahorel nods. “We’ll make it happen. Biggest show Musain has ever seen. It’s a fairly new school, we still need to get in the map. If it’s for the most adorable production of the _Nutcracker_ ever, then so be it.” He grins. “And in the meantime, we’ll work on coming up with what presents to give each other.”

“Chaos and disaster,” Jehan predicts, and leaves, Bahorel only a minute behind him.

*

“So what kind of ideas do you have for R?” Combeferre asks over the phone while Enjolras fights with his stove the night before Thanksgiving. He isn’t having the so-called “traditional” meal, or in fact doing anything for the holiday, but he seems to be getting the requisite kitchen disasters anyway.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Enjolras says, mostly for form’s sake. And then, when Combeferre doesn’t dignify that with a response, “He already has enough art supplies.”

“Yes, I imagine he does. I feel like I should remind you that it doesn’t have to be perfect or anything, Enjolras. It can be a book you think he’ll like, or a gift certificate.”

Enjolras considers that. It’s not a bad idea, on the surface (though he isn’t sure about what books he could in good conscience recommend that he thinks Grantaire would like, Grantaire hate-reads philosophers and scrawls insulting comments in the margins of used art books he picks up at yard sales, Enjolras can’t remember the last time he saw him read a book for _pleasure_ ). “Gift certificates would feel like giving up,” he admits. “We’re all friends, on the staff. People are going to give thoughtful gifts. I don’t want R to feel left out just because he had the bad luck of me picking his name out.”

Combeferre makes a thoughtful noise, and when he speaks, he sounds a little exasperated. “Why is it bad luck for you in particular to have picked his name out? For R, I mean, not you, I’m well-acquainted with your difficulties with Grantaire.”

“They aren’t difficulties as such. We just don’t have much in common. Which is why it’s not good for him, really. If Joly or Bossuet picked him, he might have mentioned something to them he wants, and he and Éponine adore each other, she would have found him something good, or Jehan would know just the book … what would you give him?”

“As I said, probably a book. Or something for his classroom, he loves his kids.”

Enjolras sighs. “That’s not much help. And I’m sorry, you don’t need to effectively have two gifts to choose. Who do you have?”

“None of your business,” says Combeferre, with great satisfaction, because sometimes he takes great delight in getting one over on Enjolras. “And I have some ideas already.”

“This whole thing is ridiculous,” Enjolras mutters, more for form’s sake than because he thinks Combeferre will agree. “Valjean made a point about charity, but considering I usually donate to charities on behalf of my friends anyway …”

“You could donate to charity on Grantaire’s behalf. An arts charity, maybe? Scholarships for disadvantaged youth for art camps and programs?”

Enjolras stirs the leftovers he finally has warming up on the stove and scrawls that idea down on the bottom of the grocery list taped to his refrigerator. “I think he would like it, but I think he would also mock me.”

“Since when have you ever cared about Grantaire mocking you?”

Enjolras goes back to stirring his dinner. “Besides, that ruins the anonymity of it, doesn’t it?”

“If you think the anonymity is going to last longer than it takes Bahorel to open his mouth or Marius to start trying to be sneaky, you are very much mistaken.” Enjolras laughs a little, and Combeferre sounds like he’s smiling when he answers. “Anyway, we have other things to think about. Bahorel sent that e-mail around—”

“About the Nutcracker, right. What are we supposed to do to help? None of it is really in our curricula. You teach science and math, I at least could do something of a history lesson about it for our fifth and sixth graders.”

He can almost hear Combeferre’s shrug. “I don’t know, but I’m sure they’ll find some way to get us involved. It’s not like we were going to get much done with the kids before holiday break anyway.”

Enjolras sighs. “Very good point. Do you think Valjean would fire me if I pretended to contract a deathly illness for the next three weeks?”

“No, but only because we’re low on substitutes this year.” Someone in the background on Combeferre’s end starts talking, probably one of his sisters telling him to get off the phone, since he’s home for the holiday. “I’ve got to go,” Combeferre says next, sure enough. “I’ll call you sometime this weekend to brainstorm ways for us to contribute to the production, it’s important for the whole school to be involved. And you think more about ideas for R.”

“Believe me, I will,” says Enjolras, and says a brief goodbye before he hangs up and turns the stove off, deciding his dinner is probably warm enough to eat.

*

Éponine really wants to like Cosette. For one thing, there aren’t a lot of women working at Musain Elementary—Fantine doing music, Musichetta in the fourth grade, Éponine herself as guidance counselor, and now Cosette, new this year, taking second grade—and she feels like they should all stick together. For another, Cosette seems genuinely nice. She’s sincerely adored by her students, she knits for charity in the staff room at lunch, she brings lunch for her father in the office every morning even though they don’t live together anymore, and she’s always got a smile and a helping hand for everyone.

For a third, it’s really stupid for Éponine to resent the way Marius stares at her like she hung the moon. Éponine has known Marius longest, even though she isn’t as close to him as Courfeyrac is: she had a crush on him from afar in high school, when he was the only person who bothered to be nice most days, she was stupidly, dangerously in love with him in college, when he was the best friend she had and she was struggling to keep everything from falling apart. That’s mostly over with now, filed down to dim regret and protectiveness because it’s hard _not_ to be protective of Marius, but it doesn’t make it any easier to like Cosette.

Disliking Cosette over a boy, even if that boy is Marius, is _stupid_ , and Éponine has been trying to figure out what to do about it for a month, ever since afternoon trick-or-treating at the school on Halloween, when Cosette dressed up as a fairy princess from some children’s book she’d been reading her kids (in a costume she sewed herself, of course) and Marius almost declared his love then and there and then came and sat on her couch and pined until Gavroche was looking at Éponine like he was sorry for her. Cosette isn’t going anywhere, and Marius’s adoration for her isn’t going anywhere, so Éponine has to like her.

That’s why she’s not sure if she’s more happy or annoyed that she got assigned Cosette for their holiday exchange. This is her opportunity to get to know Cosette, to figure out what present is going to make her happy, and be some kind of peace offering from Éponine, who has maybe avoided Cosette enough to make her look baffled and hurt a few times.

The question, of course, is what that present should be. Normally, Marius is the person she asks about this kind of thing, but he’s out for obvious reasons. She tries Gav next, more because she lives with him than because she actually thinks he’ll be helpful. “What should I give Cosette for Christmas?” she asks over their Thanksgiving meal, which is actually just turkey breasts and stuffing, because Gav is in a weird anti-potato phase. Preteen boys make no sense, but then again Éponine isn’t sure any boys at all make sense.

Gav looks at her like he’s waiting for a punch line. “A tiara?” he finally says, and Éponine really needs to stop talking about her co-workers to her kid brother.

Éponine goes to visit Grantaire the day after Thanksgiving while Gav is at a friend’s house playing video games and curls up on his couch while he flips through the fifth graders’ assignments on contrasting colors. “You’re good at gifts,” she says after a few minutes. “And I need help.”

Grantaire puts his stack of papers down. He isn’t grading them, really, more just leafing through them in a continuous circle. Éponine doesn’t pretend to understand R’s methods at times. “Need to figure out what to give Marius that doesn’t say you love him madly? A non-awkward gift for our dear leader?”

“Valjean or Enjolras?” Éponine asks, distracted.

R snorts. “Touché.”

“Who have you got?”

“You ask me to violate the sacred rites of Secret Santa?” Éponine rolls her eyes, and he laughs. “Bossuet, which should be fun. What he really needs is courage, Dutch or otherwise, so he’ll ask Joly and Musichetta out. But I am not the Wizard of Oz, whether or not he’s the Cowardly Lion, so I suppose I’ll have to think of something else. Sex toys, maybe.”

“We work at an elementary school.” She draws her knees up to her chin. “I’ve got Cosette.” He lets out a sympathetic hiss, because Grantaire gets unwise pining and stupid resentment. “What am I supposed to do about that?”

“Craft supplies, maybe.”

“Would you want art supplies?” She nods over at the corner of his living room, where there’s a stack of filled sketchbooks being used as a stand for a papier-mâché fish made by one of his students, some canvases facing the wall, and bookshelves full of fancy oil paints and watercolors and pencils, none of which have been touched in months. R is careful with his students’ work, but his own is intermittent and he doesn’t do much with it. Though he has his reasons, just like any of them.

“Ah, but art is my living, she just likes doing crafts. But I see what you mean. You want this to be a beautiful gesture to prove your readiness to be friends with her and get over Pontmercy.”

“It’s time. Past time.”

“Believe me, I get it.”

“At least Enjolras isn’t in love with someone else.”

There’s a pause, and Éponine almost regrets it. Usually she’s nice enough not to put a name to the elephant in the room, the way R has been in the painful, awful kind of love that isn’t even fun while it hurts almost since he met Enjolras at training last year. “He’s in love,” he finally says, and apparently it’s a holiday miracle and they’re talking about it. “Just not with a person. With education reform and his kids and dreaming about the leaders of tomorrow.”

“Most teachers are,” Éponine points out.

“Maybe. It’s a special level of intensity at Musain, and he’s at the forefront of it.” R picks his papers back up again. “What about plants? For Cosette, I mean. Some kind of potted flower for her apartment.”

“Possible, I guess. What if she asked me how to take care of it?”

He smiles. It’s only a little forced. “Then you would admit that you kill plants. Look, you’ve got almost a month to figure it out, and I believe in you. Maybe you should pick up a new crafting skill and make _her_ something, that would get your message across.”

Éponine thinks briefly about the disaster that was her attempt to learn how to crochet in college. “I’ll think of something,” she says, and lets him change the subject as he so obviously wants to do.

*

Enjolras tries to do some grading the Saturday after Thanksgiving. “Tries” is, of course, the operative word. He hates doing it in general, holding creativity and effort to arbitrary standards, but for fifth and sixth graders, who will be going off to middle school soon, and probably a middle school less committed to education and more committed to test scores than Musain, it’s a necessary evil.

This particular session wanders into distraction and annoyance sooner than usual, and Enjolras finds himself making a list of potential ideas for presents for R. It’s depressingly sparse, and all the ideas are Combeferre’s, other than the pathetic art supplies at the top.

Eventually, he gives in and calls Courfeyrac. Courfeyrac doesn’t have assignments to grade, unless he’s going over their cursive workbooks. Sometimes Enjolras questions why he doesn’t teach first grade like Courfeyrac, and then he remembers what large groups of six-year-olds are like. “Avoiding grading?” Courfeyrac asks, because both of Enjolras’s best friends know him far too well.

“Brainstorming for my holiday exchange recipient, actually.”

“If you’re angling for ideas, I could use a new school bag, mine is falling apart.”

“Good to know,” says Enjolras, rolling his eyes and doodling a little bird on the corner of his list. He isn’t much of an artist. He isn’t sure it would actually look like a bird to anyone else. “Who do you have?”

“No fun, I’m not telling. Just because you and Combeferre have no sense of adventure doesn’t mean I have to join in your boring club.”

“Combeferre wouldn’t tell me who he has, actually.”

Courfeyrac sounds surprised when he answers. “Well, I’m glad I’m not the only one who’s embraced the spirit of things, then. But seriously, Enjolras. You’re fairly fond of all your friends. You know what we like. What’s so difficult about a present? You give good birthday presents.”

Grantaire’s birthday is over the summer, and Enjolras was overseas spending too much of his savings seeing the sights in Oslo for it. He sent Grantaire a Facebook message and a postcard saying he went to a museum in his honor. And even did go to the museum. “I don’t know why it’s so difficult,” he says. That’s honest.

Courfeyrac laughs. “Look, just observe whoever it is, as though that doesn’t narrow it down to maybe four people, and see what they like. Secret Santa etiquette demands that you wander around school happening to mention good gift ideas for yourself as though they’re just occurring to you and you’re thinking out loud.”

“It’s a nondenominational anonymous holiday gift exchange,” Enjolras says, but he’s smiling. Valjean tries, but some traditions are entrenched in the cultural consciousness, no matter how capitalistic and devoid of meaning Enjolras feels Christmas often is. Perhaps that’s the difficulty of the gift, on top of having to give it to Grantaire. He’d like it to mean something. “So you aren’t going to help me?”

“Young Skywalker, it is not my help you need.”

Enjolras groans. “Don’t start. I don’t want my recipient to end up with something unwanted just because I don’t come up with good ideas.”

“You’re good at gifts, Enjolras. You’ll get it. You’ve got three whole weeks of school to stalk whoever it is into giving you an answer you like.”

Courfeyrac launches into a story about Marius and his pining for Cosette, and Enjolras doodles more on the margins of his mostly-empty list, waiting for inspiration. Something meaningful, something that won’t make anyone wince at how little he knows Grantaire. Something that won’t make _Grantaire_ wince at how little Enjolras knows him.

Maybe Courfeyrac’s mention of stalking him around the school until he finds an answer isn’t such a bad idea after all.


	2. Three Weeks Until the Holiday Party

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enjolras might be stalking Grantaire, Joly is kidnapped on a shopping trip, Jehan really regrets letting his students play rats, and Courfeyrac pines.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this took so long! There was a computer disaster. The next chapter should be up in much shorter order. (Famous last words, I suppose.)

Enjolras stops by Grantaire’s classroom before school the Monday after Thanksgiving. It’s always a shock stepping into the art room, because it’s more art than walls, student paintings papering until nothing underneath shows. The cabinets are painted directly in geometric designs that are a little eye-watering at first glance.

Grantaire, as always, is in the middle of it all, concentrating on an easel with a watercolor brush between his teeth. He takes it out when Enjolras belatedly taps on the door and sits up, his eyebrows raised. “To what do I owe the honor?”

“I wanted to ask what you’re doing about this Nutcracker thing that’s happening.”

“Oh, picketing in the streets,” Grantaire says with a truly unnecessary amount of sarcasm. “What do you think I’m doing about it? Painting sets, telling Bahorel it’s impossible to teach small children ballet in three weeks.”

Enjolras bites down a smile. “He and Fantine seem to be trying to work with the skills our kids already have. A few have done gymnastics, the one ballet student in the school is doing the Sugar Plum Fairy but I think one of my boys who does some kind of break-dancing, or maybe tap-dancing, is playing her partner.”

Grantaire snorts. “Break-dancing and tap-dancing are two very different things, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

“They both have rhythm.” Grantaire just laughs at him and goes back to staring at his easel, but at least they aren’t fighting. Normally if they haven’t started fighting within the first minute and a half they can get through an interaction cordially enough. “Anyway, Combeferre and I especially aren’t sure what our parts in this should be, other than letting the students out of class when someone else needs them. The younger grades are all a little more integrated, but the fifth and sixth grades …”

“Just send them where they need to be when they need to be there, go light on assignments—”

“I try to do that anyway, you know I have strong feelings about—”

“Yes, we all know. Why are you asking me about this, anyway? I’m nowhere close to the person who’s running the whole deal. Talk to Bahorel.” R visibly reconsiders that advice. “Talk to Fantine.”

“I will.” Enjolras shrugs, and hopes it isn’t too blatantly obvious that he’s lying when he says “I was just walking by your door and thought I would put my head in and ask, Bahorel wasn’t in the gym when I passed.” And see if there was anything obvious missing from his classroom, but he can’t find anything, not that he knows what should be in an art classroom in the first place.

“Probably bemoaning his sad fate and drinking coffee in the kindergarten room, which is where he belongs if you ask me.”

“As a student or a teacher?”

“Oh, a student, definitely.” Grantaire squints down at his easel. “It is really hard to come up with a set design that the kids will be much help with, for the record.”

“I’m sure you’ll come up with something.” Since that certainly isn’t anything Enjolras can give him. Visiting Grantaire in his room isn’t helping Enjolras come up with any useful ideas, but on second thought he can’t help wondering why he ever thought it would. “Let me know if you need help,” he says, since it’s the polite thing to do.

Grantaire only laughs at him. “I was there when you helped paint Feuilly’s apartment, remember? And that wasn’t even artistic painting, that was just a regular wall.”

Enjolras hopes that his embarrassment isn’t too clear on his face, but judging by Grantaire’s expression it’s a vain hope. “I thought it would be good to offer, anyway.”

“Yes, yes, the great and terrible Enjolras deigning to take part in a purely elementary school activity instead of working on preparing his kids for the vagaries of middle school.”

“If I wanted to teach at a middle school, I would teach at a middle school. I like it here.”

Grantaire smiles and makes a few strokes with his brush. “Yes, I know. And really, you couldn’t teach middle school. There’s no middle ground with you, it would be elementary school or college.”

“Obviously I’ve made my choice.” Enjolras sticks his hands in his pockets. “Do let me know if there’s anything you need from me, will you? I know I have a few students who are fairly good at art, Claire gave me a painting last week.”

“Claire is very good. Though I blame you for the fact that she’s painting about revolutions. Nobody should ever have let you teach kids of the ages to be getting their first starry-eyed crushes, it’s simply not fair on the poor things.”

Enjolras rolls his eyes. “If you’re just going to talk nonsense, I’m going to find Bahorel or Fantine.”

Grantaire flaps a hand, droplets of watercolor flying off his brush and making Enjolras step back, since he made the mistake of a white shirt this morning. “Go on, then, stop darkening my doorway. The visit has been an honor, but some of us have work to do.”

“Thanks for your help,” Enjolras says, more out of politeness than anything, because Grantaire wasn’t helpful either with his pretend errand or with his real one (not that he should be expected to drop ideas every time he saw anyone like Courfeyrac said). “And good luck with the kids today.”

“Oh, they’re fine after Thanksgiving break. It’ll be nothing compared to the day after Halloween.” Both of them cringe at that. Enjolras can’t think of a single elementary school teacher (or college one, come to that) who _wouldn’t_ cringe at that. “Now go, you’ll need more luck than me, I only have to deal with them for an hour at a time.”

Enjolras goes and tracks down Fantine rather than Bahorel, and gets told pretty much the same thing that Grantaire told him, so it seems that no one is out to help him today.

*

Joly has a plan for his Monday afternoon. It involves calling Bossuet and telling him he has a new video game to play and spending the afternoon and probably most of the night playing it. Maybe not the best Monday plan known to man, but Joly was out of town for Thanksgiving and hasn’t seen him in days, which is unacceptable. He’s willing to be tired at work in return for getting to see him, especially since he hasn’t found an excuse to see Musichetta yet.

However, all his plans are ruined by Bahorel banging through the door of the nurse’s office three minutes after the last students have been delivered onto their buses home. “I have a plan,” says Bahorel.

“So do I.” Joly doesn’t really expect it to work. Nobody, to his knowledge, has ever talked Bahorel out of anything. “What do your plans have to do with me?”

“My plans are centered around you, actually.”

Joly eyes him suspiciously. “Is this related to the nondenominational anonymous holiday gift exchange?”

“It’s related to how very badly you need to get laid,” says Bahorel, which probably means yes. Joly loves Bahorel, he loves all his friends, but he has to admit he’s a little disappointed. He likes surprises, and now he doesn’t get one. Now, apparently, he gets a blind date or something for Christmas, when finding someone to fall in love with is sort of the opposite of his problem.

“You shouldn’t say that in a school,” Joly points out, mostly for form’s sake. He’s already putting his coat on. He’s very lucky there weren’t any major illnesses today, just a terrified sixth grader getting her first period and a first grader who’d had a little too much leftover turkey at lunch, it means he doesn’t have much to clean up today.

“All the students are gone.” Bahorel ushers him out the door and makes sure the door is locked behind them. “Now, I’m going to drive you because otherwise you’ll try to flee, and I want to make this as painless as possible for both of us. Just call me your fairy godmother.”

They pass Feuilly in the hall, giving them an alarmed look as he catches Bahorel’s last sentence, and Joly mouths _help me_. Feuilly just laughs at them and keeps going towards his classroom, which really isn’t fair. Joly has him for the exchange, he’s going to give him socks. Boring socks. Scratchy ones. “You couldn’t just give me a sweater?”

“This is better than a sweater.” Bahorel steers him out towards the parking lot, where R and Fantine seem to be having a Nutcracker-related conference, judging by R doing a perfect pirouette in the middle of the conversation. Not that R doesn’t randomly break out into dance occasionally, but it does seem relevant.

“I’m being kidnapped,” Joly shouts, for good measure. He doesn’t expect R to have any sympathy, but Fantine is nice. She might rescue him from Bahorel, and everyone adores Fantine so Bahorel might even listen to her.

Fantine does have the grace to look momentarily concerned, but then R catches her attention again and there goes that chance. Bahorel opens the door to his improbably tiny car and raises his eyebrows at Joly until he gives up and gets in. “This isn’t going to be torture,” Bahorel says. It sounds more like he’s humoring Joly than anything else.

Bahorel sings shamelessly along with ridiculous music through the whole twenty-minute drive. Joly gives up on worrying and sings along with him for the second half of it, and he’s feeling a little better about the excursion after assuring Bahorel and the world that they’re going to hear him roar. When he tunes back in to where they are, however, he finds that they are in a side street in a downtown parked between a tattoo parlor and a clothing store. “I’m not getting a tattoo,” he says preemptively.

“Of course you aren’t,” says Bahorel, and drags him out of the car. “Tattoos take commitment, I wouldn’t drag someone out for a tattoo without warning them a few weeks in advance.”

The clothing store is a little less terrifying inside than it looked from outside. Or at least it’s cleaner. There are still lots of things with chains and leather and he’s fairly sure that there are sex toys on the back wall. Not that there’s anything bad about sex toys, but Joly believes in buying them on the internet. Bahorel, much to his relief, doesn’t drag him towards the sex toys. He does, however, drag him towards a rack of pants. “I have plenty of clothes,” Joly says.

“You wear scrubs to work,” says Bahorel, and goes rifling through the rack.

“You wear gym shorts and t-shirts to work,” Joly retaliates.

“Yes, and I wear other things at other times. Like when I’m seducing people. Try these on.” Bahorel hands him a pair of leather pants. They don’t look like they’ll be baggy. Well, Joly doesn’t think people tend to buy leather pants for their bagginess, but _still_.

“I’m not seducing anyone.”

Bahorel shepherds him towards the changing rooms anyway. Joly tries not to think about how many people have already tried on these pants. “Not in those pants, you’re not. In these pants, maybe.” He shoves Joly past the curtain. “Try them on. Let me know if you need help wiggling into them.”

“If you’re giving me a blind date for Christmas, I demand a refund.”

“I’m not giving you a blind date, why would I give you a blind date? You’re getting leather pants, and you’re going to find your _own_ date. Dates. The time has come, Joly.”

Joly really wishes he didn’t know what that meant. He also really wishes he weren’t standing in a changing room trying not to touch anything more than necessary trying on _leather pants_ but clearly he isn’t going to get anything he wants today. “I don’t know what you mean,” he says anyway.

Bahorel is heartless. “Yes you do. How are they?”

“Tight.” Joly hasn’t even got them past his knees yet, but “tight” will definitely be a good descriptor.

“Feature, not a bug. Talcum powder will help, and hopefully you’ll have help pulling them off.”

Joly makes a despairing noise and continues trying to wriggle his way into the pants. “Why do you think leather pants are going to help?”

“Because Musichetta likes leather, and she probably won’t seduce one of you without the other.” Joly definitely does not whimper. Whimpering is not dignified. Bahorel continues to have no sympathy, because he is _awful_. “Come on, denial doesn’t work. Everyone knows that you three want to make adorable brown-eyed babies in whatever combinations possible. I’m just facilitating the process.”

Finally, Joly manages to get the pants on and the fly fastened. He was right. They are definitely tight, and he feels like he’s walking like a cowboy when he pushes aside the curtain to show Bahorel. “What if one of my students saw me?” he asks.

“Then you would be wearing these pants in the wrong place.” Bahorel makes a thoughtful noise. “Turn around.” Joly does. Some things seem inevitable. If he does it without Bahorel steering his shoulders, he can pretend that he’s capitulating with grace. “Well, they aren’t supposed to be worn with that kind of underwear, obviously, but otherwise, hot. Wear those around Musichetta and our dear Lesgles, and you’ll be seduced in no time.”

Joly eyes himself in the mirror dubiously. The pants look sort of ridiculous with his scrub shirt. Still, there’s a fine tradition of people wearing leather and becoming instantly hotter, from the first leather tanners to Olivia Newton John. “Leather pants?”

Bahorel claps him on the shoulder. “Leather pants and oral sex, Joly. Gets them every time. Merry Christmas, man, you can’t fail with these.”

*

One visit to Grantaire’s classroom didn’t give Enjolras any ideas, but that doesn’t stop him going back Tuesday, when they share a free period. “Two days in a row?” Grantaire says the second he turns to find Enjolras knocking on his door. “To what do I owe the honor?”

“I’m going easy on the homework, don’t have anything else to do,” Enjolras says, which is mostly a lie. There are any number of things he could or ought to do, but he’s determined not to give Grantaire something he’ll dislike, or something that will disappoint him. “What are you doing?”

Grantaire nods down at the stack of paintings in front of him. “Mounting these so we can put them on the walls. I’ve had the kids doing pictures from the Nutcracker, so they can be in the entryway when the parents come in.” He grins down. “Come over and see, there are a whole lot of candycanes that look like dicks.”

Enjolras grimaces. “Sounds delightful,” he says, but he goes over anyway, leaning over Grantaire’s shoulder since he doesn’t have an extra adult-sized chair and looking at the paper on top of the stack, which appears to be two gingerbread men dancing together. “You promised me dicks,” he says as dryly as he can when Grantaire just grins down at it before selecting a piece of red construction paper and taking out a gluestick.

“I knew you were just in it for the unintentional inappropriateness,” says Grantaire, and then hands him an extra gluestick. “I pick the paper, you make sure it’s centered and glue it on. _Securely_.”

“I know you think I’m up there in the lofty fifth and sixth grades and that we’re practically writing college papers, but believe it or not, this is not the first time I’ve done this.” Enjolras takes a picture of what looks like a bunch of people with candy corn for hair and puts it on the brown background Grantaire gives him. Someone isn’t ready to let go of Halloween, it seems. “How are the sets going?”

“In the last twenty-four hours, you mean?” Enjolras refuses to respond to Grantaire’s obvious curiosity. He’s fairly sure he’s being obvious, but he isn’t going to flat-out tell Grantaire that he’s been assigned to give him a present. “Not bad, actually. Would you give me some elbow space? For pity’s sake, let a man breathe.”

Enjolras moves farther down the table R is working at, continuing his work with the gluesticks and whatever Grantaire passes him. “You got a design done, then?”

“For what it’s worth.” He shrugs. “If there were more time, I would have had one of the kids do it, this is about them, but at least I’ll have their help painting it, I hope.”

“Your art is good.” He’s fairly sure of that, anyway. Grantaire doesn’t show in galleries (anymore. Enjolras will admit he looked him up on the internet when they first started clashing during their very first staff training at Musain, and he knows R was well-known before he dropped off the map to get his teaching degree, showing before he even turned sixteen, but R doesn’t talk about it so nobody else does either), so he can’t be certain, but from what little he’s seen he’s very good.

“Maybe. Doesn’t matter, does it? Nobody’s here to see my painting, like I said. They’re here to see the kids.” Grantaire beams down at the next painting in his stack. “This one is one of yours. He’s pretty good.”

He is indeed. The nutcracker in his picture is even recognizably a nutcracker, and it’s battling a rat. There’s a little too much blood for his taste, but if R isn’t worried, Enjolras isn’t worried. Much. “He is,” he says.

Someone knocks on the door, one of Feuilly’s kids, and gives them a wide-eyed look. “Mr. R, Mr. F wants to know if we can come in early, there was a spill and he wants to get it cleaned up without us there.” She turns to Enjolras, a little more mistrustful. “Hi, Mr. E.”

“Hi, Mary.” He looks over at Grantaire. “I should get going, let you deal with the kids. Mine will be back from gym pretty soon anyway.”

“Okay. Mary, you let Mr. F know that you can come in five minutes, I just need to clean up. Mr. E, thanks for the visit and the help.”

Enjolras waves and heads out the door, Mary leaving in the opposite direction. For a second, Enjolras thinks about stopping by Feuilly’s room and seeing if he can help with whatever’s wrong, but he doesn’t have much longer in his free time and he thinks he’s starting to have an idea for what to give Grantaire for the gift exchange. It would be hard to pull off, but if he can manage it he’s fairly sure that R will love it, so hard to pull off or not he’s going to have to try.

*

“So what do you think of Enjolras’s latest plan?”

Jehan looks up from arranging Play-doh gingerbread men on a tray so he can take them home to bake and put ribbons on for his kids to find Cosette standing in the doorway, her hip propped against the doorframe and wearing a skirt with snowflakes on it. She’s the only one who understands the true elementary school teacher tradition of wearing seasonal clothing. (Sometimes Courfeyrac does, but mostly it’s bowties in appropriate colors, which Jehan holds do not count.) “I think walls have ears.”

“He’s on the stage in the gym with my entire class painting a very Impressionistic Christmas tree. Your kids are with Bahorel right now, right?”

“Yes, he’s teaching them how to be rats.” And Jehan has to e-mail all the parents in his class begging for help making paper plate rat ears and rope tails as soon as possible. He jots a note and stands up to invite Cosette in. “Well, he’d say they already know, but I refuse to take slander for my kids.”

She grins, complete with dimples. Jehan is fairly sure that if he were interested in women he would be in love with her. “Anyway, Enjolras’s latest plan?”

“Other than the fact that he completely fails at the anonymous part of the anonymous gift exchange? I think it’s sweet.” Cosette starts straightening up his sandbox, which he hasn’t gotten around to yet after a fairly harrowing indoor recess. It’s snowing, and the kids are going crazy asking if he thinks they’ll be let out early, and Jehan is just having flashbacks to last winter, full of attempting to get kids into their snowpants and mittens. “R will love it.”

“He really will. If nobody lets it slip. An elementary school is not the place to keep secrets.”

“No, definitely not. I’ve already put together half the list of who has who in my head, and now Enjolras is trying to involve students. We may not survive.” Jehan smiles. “Some of my kids are already excited to draw a picture for Mr. R, though. Enjolras is going to end up with a book hundreds of pages long.”

“We should all draw something too. May not be much better than our students’ work, but I think R would like it.” Cosette looks at him like she’s waiting for confirmation. “Right?”

“I’ll get word around about that … and to Enjolras.” Jehan goes back to his gingerbread men. “You let the office staff know, will you?” Cosette stares at him looking alarmed enough that he wonders for a second if he’s said something terrible. “Because of your father,” he adds.

“Right. My father.” So it’s a Marius thing. Jehan really should have guessed that the Marius thing goes in both directions, because for some reason Marius is like proverbial catnip to the ladies. And occasionally the gentlemen, Jehan is pretty sure that Courfeyrac would have snapped him up if Marius seemed interested.

“And Marius,” he says, just because he can.

Cosette puts her hand over her face. “Let’s not talk about Marius.”

“That is really not helping me not be curious.” She drops her hand to give him a pleading look, and Jehan decides to be merciful. For now, anyway. “Fine, we won’t talk about Marius. But you get word to the office staff, R would like that. Someone should have an easy time with their gift exchange recipient, anyway.”

Cosette laughs. “Have someone difficult?”

“I thought you’d put half the picture together already.”

“Maybe I’m just giving you the opportunity to tell me.”

Jehan is very tempted, because he’s got her father, but he thinks he’s going to end up buying Valjean a pocketwatch. He seems like the kind of man who ought to carry one. He already carries candy in his pockets for particularly distressed kids, he’s basically Scrooge at the end of _The Christmas Carol_. “Unfortunately, you’ll have to deal with the mystery.”

“I suppose I will.” Cosette eyes him up and down, and then smiles brilliantly. “It’s been good talking to you, Jehan. I’ll head over to the office now.”

He waves her off and goes back to his gingerbread men, only to be interrupted five minutes later by the noisy return of his students, Bahorel on their heels, all of them making noises that sound more like wolves than rats. “I will never forgive you,” he tells Bahorel under his breath.

Bahorel just grins at him. “They’re adorable, their parents will coo.”

“Their parents will sue us if they draw blood.” Jehan raises his voice. “Everybody thank Mr. Bahorel for the class.”

There’s a general murmur of “Thank you, Mr. Borel” from around the room. There’s a reason most of them go by their initials, but Jehan does try with his kindergarteners.

“Thank you, everyone. And thank you, Mr. Prouvaire. We’ll talk more about our Nutcracker after school.” He winks, waves at the kids, and heads out of the room at a jog even though it means Jehan is going to spend the next two weeks reminding his kids not to run in the hallways.

Bahorel really does live to make his life more difficult. He’s lucky that he’s impossible to dislike.

*

The pictures pour into Enjolras’s classroom for the next several days, delivered by teachers, by students themselves (who all seem to treat it as some kind of Mission Impossible, sometimes complete with humming and hiding behind doors even when Enjolras knows R is busy, maybe not even in the building), by Marius claiming to have a folder of papers Enjolras asked to have printed.

They’re good. A lot of them, especially the ones from the younger grades, are clearly pictures of R, or at least a vaguely human-shaped figure with black hair. Even Joly drew a picture of R, because the staff is joining in on Enjolras’s gift with abandon (which means he probably should too, not that he has the faintest idea what to draw). Others are more random: landscapes, strange animals, illustrations from stories. At least three fourth-graders draw elephants, two of which are doing ballet, and there must be a story there but Enjolras has no idea what it is.

Enjolras has talked to a local copy center about binding all the pictures up in a book, he’s given a deadline so they’ll have plenty of time to do it, and that should be all the thinking he has to do about R’s gift. Things can go back to normal.

That doesn’t explain why he finds himself tapping on the door to the art room after school on Thursday. Grantaire is buttoning a paint-covered lab coat on over his clothes, and pauses when he catches sight of Enjolras. “To what do I owe the honor? What is this, the third time in a week?”

“Just thought I’d say hello.”

Grantaire stares at him. “What, no reason? Just saying hello?”

Enjolras stares back, a little offended. “I need a reason to come say hello to you?”

“Yes, actually, you do. Appointments in my book and all that.” He picks up a box of brushes and another of paints. “I was just on my way to work on the set, do some of the detail work the kids can’t really manage. So you see, my social calendar is all booked.”

“I’ll help,” Enjolras offers.

Grantaire stares again. “The holiday season does weird things to people. Do I remember you going all heart-grew-three-sizes-that-day last year?”

“You don’t, because I didn’t. And also, I have read all my Dr. Seuss, don’t think I don’t know what you’re implying.”

“Of course you’ve read the complete works.” Grantaire leads him out of the art room, handing one of the boxes to Enjolras when he reaches out for it. “He’s the most political children’s book author I can think of, I would be shocked if you didn’t worship at his feet.”

Enjolras thinks about objecting, but it’s fair. He uses quite a few of Seuss’s works in his language arts classes. It’s almost time to start the sixth grade on the Butter Battle Book. “Well, you like him too.”

“He was a pretty incredible artist.” R leads him into the gym and up onto the stage, where the students have been painting sets all week. They’re remarkably close to finished, actually. Which is good, considering there are only two more weeks until the show. “Now, are you serious about helping me? Because frankly, you hovering around is sort of freaky, but at least I can get some work out of you.”

“I’ll help,” says Enjolras. “I don’t have much else to do with the production.”

Grantaire lets a few minutes pass in silence while he paints presents under a tree, and Enjolras carefully paints a side wall light blue when Grantaire points him in that direction. His khakis are covered in blue paint within five minutes, but they’re old anyway. He’ll live if he has to retire them. “I still can’t figure out what you’re after,” R says when Enjolras swears about dripping paint on himself for the fourth time.

“Do I have to be after something?”

“I would assume that you’ve got me for the Secret—excuse me, the nondenominational anonymous holiday gift exchange—but I’m actually pretty sure that Jehan has me, he’s been smirking at me more than usual. So that doesn’t leave a lot of options.”

Enjolras shrugs. “I enjoy your company. Especially when we aren’t arguing. Combeferre is busy with standardized testing, Courfeyrac is busy with … something, I’m honestly not sure what. You need help painting sets.”

Grantaire turns around and snorts at the sight of him. “And a lot of help you’re turning out to be. You’re sure that’s it?”

“Nothing more to confess.”

Grantaire shrugs. “Okay then, let’s get back to painting.”

Enjolras stays for another hour, through an argument about standardized tests and managing to drip paint in his hair that probably won’t come out for days, and doesn’t even mind the way Grantaire laughs and snaps a picture with his phone when Enjolras finally excuses himself.

*

Courfeyrac is the first person to get his Secret Santa present, which he thinks narrows the gifter down to three people: Valjean, Enjolras, or Combeferre. And considering Enjolras is getting the whole school involved in finding a present for R, that really narrows it down to two people.

He likes surprises and mysteries. He would normally be completely happy to let it go and remain anonymous and flaunt his subscription to a bowtie-of-the-month club (who knew there was a bowtie-of-the-month club? Certainly not Courfeyrac, or he would have been a member since age fourteen) in front of all his friends, who definitely do not have presents this awesome.

The problem is that Combeferre is one of the possibilities, and Courfeyrac isn’t really given to overanalyzing anything but Combeferre.

“I hope it was your father,” he tells Cosette when they sit down for lunch on Friday and she compliments the new bowtie, because of course she knows it’s new. There are snowflakes on it.

Cosette just smiles at him. “Why do you hope that?”

“What would you do if Marius gave you the perfect present?”

She tilts her head and considers that for a moment, cheeks pink. “Kiss him?”

“Ugh, you’re terrible, you already know he wants to kiss you, you’re just having second thoughts because he works in the same office as your father.”

Éponine pokes her head into the lunchroom and gives them a suspicious look. “I think I’ll eat in my—”

“No, stay,” says Cosette, and she does the puppy eyes. Courfeyrac loves her.

“Come in, Éponine, feel pity for me.”

For a second, he thinks they’ve lost her, but then she comes in and plops her lunch bag on the table, taking out a sandwich that’s cut like a dinosaur. “My brother,” she explains when Cosette giggles at it. “Why am I feeling pity for you?”

“He got his gift exchange present,” Cosette explains. “And he’s afraid it’s from Combeferre, and he’s pining, and I don’t think I’m allowed to call it pathetic, because—um.”

Éponine grimaces. “Because of Marius,” she finishes, because Éponine is very brave and wonderful and if Courfeyrac were the kind of person to write epic poems he would write her epic poems. “Is it the bowtie?”

Courfeyrac preens a little. He can’t help it. “You noticed! And no. I mean, yes, but it’s more. It’s a subscription to a bowtie-of-the-month club.” Cosette pats him on the arm. “If it’s Combeferre I have to kiss him. If it’s Valjean I’m probably not going to kiss him, that would get weird fast, if my roommate is going to be his son-in-law.”

“This whole elementary school is a soap opera,” Éponine says in some despair, and winces when she rummages in her bag for something. “Strained my wrist,” she adds to Cosette’s concerned look, and then glares before Courfeyrac can even think about making the gesture he wants to make. “Not that way. But seriously, so you kiss Combeferre. We all thought you were dating for the first year we knew you.”

“I thought you were until my father set me straight.”

Courfeyrac groans into the table. “Of course the principal knows. It was just self-defense, we spent our lives shepherding Enjolras around keeping him from getting an arrest record and making it so he couldn’t teach, so it was fall in love with one or the other of them, who in their right mind wouldn’t choose Combeferre?”

Cosette pats him on the shoulder. “R, probably. Maybe other people, I don’t know. But I do think you should kiss him, for what it’s worth. Even if my father gave you the bowties.”

“I’m going to get a job at a normal school,” says Éponine, but she sticks around when Jehan bursts into the room and the whole teacher’s room becomes a massive holiday arts and crafts discussion as it’s wont to do when the teachers of the lowest grades all end up in a room together.

Courfeyrac even feels mostly normal by the time he has to go collect his kids from recess, and if he very carefully saves the note that came with the packaging announcing that it was a gift from someone wishing him all the best to put in his shoebox-that-is-definitely-not-a-scrapbook later, that’s his own business.

*

Every elementary school teacher can draw a little, even if it’s just stick figures. Enjolras isn’t the worst in the school (that’s probably Bossuet), but he isn’t anywhere close to the top of the list. Still, if he’s giving a book to R of pictures from almost everyone in the school, he should probably be included in that. Even Valjean submitted a sketch.

When Enjolras stares at a blank piece of paper for half an hour on Friday, he calls Combeferre. “I don’t know what to draw,” he says.

“This is not my problem. Even more not my problem than usual, in fact.”

Enjolras blinks. It’s rare for Combeferre to sound even that impatient. “Are you all right?”

“Fine. Holiday stress.” Combeferre sighs. “Is this going to be a second round of you not knowing what R likes and stressing yourself out because of that?”

“Maybe.” Enjolras pauses. “It’s a good present, but I still feel as though it ought to be more personal.”

“He’s already going to be overwhelmed. Draw him a cartoon on the French revolution, Enjolras, I don’t know. He’ll like whatever you do.”

“He mocked my painting skills yesterday.”

“He’ll like it, Enjolras. I don’t think he could do anything else. He loves his kids’ art, so he’ll love a book of it, and whatever you add, either he’ll like it or he’ll like the opportunity to tease you.”

Enjolras frowns down at the paper in front of him. “I still don’t know what to do.”

“Then follow him around more.” Combeferre is starting to sound more like himself, anyway, much to Enjolras’s relief. The world always feels off-kilter when Combeferre is upset about something. “It’s only a Christmas present.”

“You aren’t worrying about yours this much?”

There’s a moment of silence. “I suppose you’re right, but still. I can assure you R will like it, whatever it is you end up drawing. Spend more time trying to find out his interests if you want, but he will like it regardless.”

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

“The gift exchange is a little more complicated than I’d hoped,” Combeferre says, which is as good as admitting that he’s as much at loose ends as Enjolras is. “But only two more weeks of school before the Nutcracker and then the holiday party, and we can forget about things. Or not forget about them, as the case may be. Now, I’m supposed to meet Feuilly to talk about that snow experiment he wants to do, I’ll talk to you soon.”

He hangs up before Enjolras can ask any more questions about what has him disconcerted, and Enjolras sighs and goes back to staring at his blank paper. He’ll think of something, of course he will, and if it takes more suspicion from Grantaire, well, he’s willing to deal with that.


	3. Two Weeks Until the Holiday Party

Enjolras may not be artistic, and barely as crafty as most elementary school teachers have to be, but he's an expert with a glue-gun, which is how he ends up pulled into helping Cosette, Grantaire, and Jehan with costumes after school on Monday.

“You asked if there was something you could do to help,” R says the first time Enjolras rolls his eyes down at the candy cane costume he's attempting to put together.

“I'm fairly sure there weren't any candy canes in the original version of the ballet,” Enjolras says, since that is at least one of his objections and he can't very well tell Grantaire that he was offering his services as a ruse so he could try to think of presents to give to him.

Cosette gives him a long exasperated look. “Do you want to be the one to figure out how to make a costume representing Turkish delight?”

“Does anyone actually know what Turkish delight looks like?” asks Jehan, gluing sequins to a tutu for their Sugar Plum Fairy.

“It's not easy to make costumes based off, I'll tell you that,” says Cosette, and Enjolras decides to go back to his glue gun without complaining anymore. Most of the costumes, or the basics from them, have been supplied from home, but the rats need ears and tails and the candy canes need stripes and the snowflakes need glitter and Enjolras won't be able to get it out of his hair for at least a week.

“How's the book going?” Jehan asks after a few minutes of working in silence (or near silence, the radio in the corner is quietly playing songs from some Christmas station. If Enjolras hears one more version of “Sleigh Ride” he might scream).

“All but a few pictures have been submitted, so I plan to take it to the printers sometime in the next few days.” If he can get his own picture done, that is. He's been reading quite a lot of Dr. Seuss over the weekend, but it's a harder style to mimic than he might have hoped. And he knows he could just draw something ridiculous and have done with it (Marius, inexplicably, drew a sheep), but he doesn't want to. The gift is from him, so he should at least make an effort to have his own work not be entirely shown up by everyone else's.

“I can't wait to see it. We do get to see it, right?” Jehan drops a few sequins on the floor and grumbles as he picks them up.

“That's up to him. If I print it for everyone, it isn't really a present for R, is it?” Enjolras finishes his sixth candy cane costume and picks up the seventh. “But you can ask him to see it when I've given it to him.”

“Are you going to give it to him yourself, then?” Cosette goes back to stitching gold braid on a red jacket for their Nutcracker. “Since you aren't bothering to be anonymous with the rest of the school?”

“I know it won't remain a secret for very long. It's a miracle the kids haven't already told him. But no, I'm just going to leave it on his desk. I doubt he'll take well to my standing there waiting for him to express his gratitude.”

Cosette makes an exasperated noise. “Yes, I'm sure he'll be terribly resentful. R just hates having to talk to you.” Jehan snorts. “Do what you like, Enjolras, but I promise he won't object to you just giving him the gift, if you'd rather.”

“I'll leave it out for him. It won't be much of a surprise, I'm shocked nobody has given it away, but he deserves at least something of one. He was saying he felt bad for Joly having it ruined.”

“What did Joly get?” Jehan asks. “He hasn't mentioned.”

“I don't know, but it was from Bahorel, so it's probably nothing he wants to talk about when there could potentially be students around.”

Cosette laughs. “I sort of wish Bahorel had gotten me. I'll bet he gives creative gifts.”

“He would probably try to set you up with Marius,” Jehan says, smiling fondly. “Somehow, as sneakily as he could manage. Ten bucks says whatever he gave Joly has to do with Bossuet and Musichetta.” He grins over at Cosette. “Good thing I have faith in you to seduce Marius on your own.”

Cosette turns pink. Enjolras tries not to look as pained as he feels. Using a glue gun to work on the show is one thing, but listening to gossip while he does it is another. He loves his friends, but he doesn't really want to hear which ones want to sleep with whom. “I don't want to hear about anyone's seduction plans.”

“This is why you're bad at coming up with them on your own.” Jehan sews on a few more sequins and ignores Enjolras's glare. “You could learn by example.”

Enjolras doesn't throw his hands up in exasperation, but that's only because he's holding a hot glue gun. “And who would I be seducing?”

“Bahorel should have pulled out _Enjolras_ ,” says Cosette, and then refuses to say anything more.

Enjolras knows when he's been beaten, but the thought nags at him for the rest of the afternoon.

*

On Tuesday morning, Cosette finds a package sitting in the center of her desk. The wrapping is beautiful, which doesn't disqualify anyone except Bossuet, Enjolras, and maybe Éponine. When she opens it, there are two things inside: the first is a plastic tiara of the kind that girls in her class use in playsets, with a blue jewel in the center of it. She puts it on immediately, even though she's wearing red today and it doesn't exactly match. It's silly and sort of delightful and she's already happy with it before she looks at the other present.

The other present is a scarf, obviously hand-knitted. It's a lovely rose pink, all soft yarn, and full of lumps and gaps and other hallmarks of it being a hasty project by a novice knitter. Cosette _loves_ it, though, as soon as she realizes that, because she suspects it means that someone learned to knit just so they could give her a homemade gift.

The heating in the school is finally on properly, a snowstorm convincing the superintendent that it's time, so Cosette can't wear it all day like she wants to, but she does put it on for a few seconds. It might be lumpy, but it is comfortable, and if it isn't the prettiest scarf in the world, well, it doesn't have to be pretty, just warm. When she picks it up, though, a piece of paper tucked in the middle of it falls out.

It's typed, for anonymity, she assumes, and it reads _Just ask him out already, **everyone** 's been waiting for you to do it all year._

Cosette is used to being teased about Marius—she's even more than a little amused at herself for the speed and depth of the infatuation. He isn't her usual type at all, but he's all blue eyes and soft voice and mild bewilderment at all his friends, and Cosette can't help adoring him. She would have asked him out months ago, if it weren't for Éponine. Because Éponine is lovely, if not friendly, and clearly has or had some kind of feelings for Marius. Cosette isn't heartless.

But the emphasis on _everyone_ , that's got to mean something. Maybe Bahorel isn't the only one using his gift for matchmaking, and maybe Cosette should take her gifter at their word and do it.

She takes off the scarf and hangs it next to her coat and leaves the tiara on before she goes to the office. She drove in with her dad this morning, after spending the night at his house, which she likes to do at least once a week, so she knows he's in there, anyway. Marius isn't, since she wanted to get to school early, but maybe that's best anyway.

Her dad looks up from his papers when she comes in and smiles at her. “What can I do for you, princess?”

Cosette adjusts the tiara. “I just came in to say hello and show off my present from my gift exchange giver. Whoever it is made me a scarf too, but it's warm today so I decided to leave it for going home.”

“Your kids will like it.”

“And my fellow teachers won't, I should make it my goal to make Enjolras stare at it until he starts railing against the monarchy.”

Her father loves his revolutionary teachers, and he doesn't even try to hide his smile. “That must have at least been half the reason your gifter chose that in particular.”

That makes her wonder if it was Grantaire. If he could get a rise out of Enjolras he would, and this might well work. On top of that, he is probably Éponine's best friend, and if anyone has the right to speak on her behalf, he does. Though maybe it's Éponine herself, and Cosette is overthinking it. “Possibly,” she finally says.

Marius chooses that moment to come in. He's wearing a boa made of tinsel and turns scarlet the second he sees her, which means the boa is probably Courfeyrac's fault. Judging by the terrible Christmas sweater underneath his winter coat, the “probably” is a “definitely.” “Cosette,” he chokes, and waves at her, which is adorable. “You have a tiara.”

“I do. And you have a boa!”

He looks down at it. “I do.” He looks back up at her. “It's blue,” he says. “So is your crown.”

“Are you asking me to relieve you of it?”

“No! I mean … yes? Maybe a little?”

Cosette calls it her good deed of the day (as well as maybe an excuse to get closer to him) and walks over to take it away from him. He blushes the whole time she unwinds him, and then more when she winks and puts it on. “I'm very patriotic, but I suppose it can't be helped,” she says, and turns back to her father. “How does it look, Papa?”

“Fine.” Her father goes back to staring at his papers and pretending he doesn't see her flirting with the school secretary. There's a reason she loves him (well, there are a lot).

“Marius?”

“You always look lovely.” And there's _definitely_ a reason she likes him. “Um, but you don't have to wear it. It sort of scratches.”

“Nonsense, it's lovely. And I'll swap it out for a different scarf at the end of the day.” She twists her hands in front of her. “Maybe you can walk me home? It's not a long walk, and then not a long walk from my place to yours, and I'd give you cocoa or tea in between, if you like. I could return your tinsel so Courfeyrac won't cry.”

Marius blinks at her, looking sort of dazed. At least it seems to be a good kind of dazed. “How did you know Courfeyrac was the one who gave me the tinsel?”

“Because he's the one you live with, and probably the only person you would let get away with making you wear a tinsel boa. So, I'll see you after school?”

He nods until he looks rather like a bobblehead doll. “Yes, you definitely will. You don't have anything to do after school for the Nutcracker?”

“Not today. Bahorel and Fantine are keeping the kids after, but we got a lot of work on the costumes done yesterday, and we'll probably finish them this weekend.”

Marius nods again. “I'll see you around three, then.”

Cosette beams. When she finds out who her gift exchange partner is for sure, she's going to have to give them quite a large hug. For now, though, she turns around and grins at her father, who hides his own smile in response, and then turns back to Marius and gives him a hug instead. He stands there stiff as a beam, but when she pulls away he's looking happily concussed, so that seems to be going well. She leaves trying very hard not to whistle.

She runs into Fantine out in the hallway, who gives her a tired smile that turns brighter when she notices Cosette's unusually sparkly attire. “Feeling festive?”

“The tiara was a present, and I stole the boa from Marius.”

“Of course. I was just going in to see your father, is he in there?”

Cosette nods and tries not to voice her suspicions about what kind of reasons Fantine could have to go visit her father. She's thought they would be wonderful for each other practically since she met Fantine, but her father doesn't take matchmaking very well, so she's just had to think it from afar. “Yes, he is. Going in on _Nutcracker_ business?”

“The kids want to sing something at the end, I want the okay for them to sing something religious before they get their hopes up about anything. It will probably end up being something really irrelevant like 'Winter Wonderland,' but I wanted to check.”

“'Deck the Hall' at the beginning, maybe? And I don't know what at the end.”

“We'll figure it out. I have to keep telling myself that the parents will think it's adorable no matter what. I used to work at a high school, people are pickier there.”

“Goodness, I can't imagine. I'm sure it will turn out fine.”

Fantine clasps her hand. “Thank you very much, Cosette. Now, I'll let you get back to your classroom. It was good to have a chance to chat with you.”

Cosette smiles at her and walks down the hall humming the Sugar Plum Fairy's dance as she goes.

*

Enjolras stops in Grantaire's room after school on Tuesday. It's getting to be a habit, of sorts, so he doesn't realize he has nothing even resembling an excuse until Grantaire looks up from what he's doing at Enjolras's knock and gives him a look like he's expecting an explanation of some sort.

“I just came to see you,” Enjolras says, a little more defensively than he means to.

R has paper spread all over one of his tables and paint spread all over his hands while he fingerpaints what appears to be a landscape. It doesn't even seem like something he's doing for the kids, just for himself. “Well, here I am.”

“Do you want help?”

Grantaire stares at him for a second. “What?”

“With your fingerpainting. I mean, unless it's a personal project, which is probably is. I'm sorry.” Enjolras tries not to let his embarrassment show on his face. He's almost never this ineloquent, and he's not sure why his words have deserted him now. “Would you rather I left?”

“No, come on over. If you want to get your hands dirty, who am I to stop you?” He nods down at the paper in front of him, and Enjolras goes over to see it. It is a landscape, a fairly plain one. He's working on various shades of green for the ground, obviously making a beginning. “I'm making a background, the kids in Musichetta's class are doing animal cutouts because she has them doing a local ecosystem project, so I thought we could glue them to this. There will be a lake, and some other things, of course.”

“What can I do?”

“The blue fingerpaint over there. Make a sky. Just leave blank spaces for clouds.”

That's a good deal less direction than Enjolras wants, but it seems to be all the direction R is going to give him, so he puts his hands in the plate of blue paint and starts smearing them in the space indicated for the sky. He's not as good as Grantaire, though that doesn't shock him at all, but he leaves ragged patches for clouds and covers the rest of the area as well as he can without getting in Grantaire's way. He manages not to get it on his clothes this time, too, which is nothing less than a miracle.

“I'm afraid it's not very even,” he says when he steps back to look at it.

“Skies aren't.” R goes to the sink in the corner of his room and washes the green off his hands, scrubbing quickly before he comes over and adds more blue to the plate, diluting out some of the white that he must have added for the sky. “Come on, let's do the lake together.”

They do, paint-slippery hands sliding all over each other whenever Enjolras slips, and when they finish R points him over towards the sink. “I can help more,” Enjolras offers while he scrubs them off. His hands are dyed faintly blue even where he's scrubbed well.

“I have to let it dry before I put anything else on, but thanks for the offer.” Grantaire smiles, even if he's starting to seem confused about Enjolras's presence again now that they aren't actively working. “Thanks for helping me with this, too. I'm still not sure why we're suddenly hanging out, but … yeah, just. Thanks.”

“I'm sorry I've acted in a way in the past that makes it strange to you that I want to spend time with you now,” Enjolras says, because he can't think of much else to say. “I know we've argued, but you are a friend.”

“Um, thanks?” Grantaire looks up at the clock. “I should go, though, actually, I'm sorry. I have a meeting.”

Enjolras takes that as its meant and heads towards the door. “I should get back to my office, actually. There's still some costume work I wanted to get done.”

“See you soon,” R says, and the door shuts on him adding “Apparently.”

*

Bossuet is going to die.

Bossuet is going to die and it is going to be _all Joly's fault_ and Joly will cry and feel guilty forever, so actually Bossuet is not going to die because even when Joly is killing him Bossuet doesn't want him to be unhappy.

But really, if Joly did not want Bossuet dead, he wouldn't have worn leather pants to dinner at Musichetta's house.

At least he has the comfort that he's not the only one having real trouble thinking when Joly's pants are all clingy and leather and his ass is _right there_ , because Musichetta dropped a jar of salsa (on Bossuet's foot) when Joly walked in. And then it shattered (also on Bossuet's foot) and Joly got upset that they might step on the glass and then he _bent over_ , and has Bossuet mentioned that he's going to die?

“I'm going to die,” he informs Musichetta while he helps her with dessert.

“I am going to be thinking dirty thoughts while trying to teach fourth grade tomorrow, at least you just get to sit in your tech den with your terrible inappropriate boner.”

They stare at each other for a moment in mutual shock that one of them has actually mentioned it. The sexual tension that comes from their mess of crushes on each other is never spoken of, mostly because then they would have to do something about it, and trying to plan threesomes when you work at an elementary school is kind of difficult. Also, Bossuet thinks he would probably have a heart attack if it actually worked out. “What?” he says belatedly.

“Nothing!”

Joly pokes his head into the kitchen. Bossuet jumps. Musichetta doesn't, but she's much better at subtle than Joly is. Lucky Musichetta. Especially lucky Musichetta because Bossuet isn't actually sure if Joly is bisexual because he hasn't had the courage to ask, so chances are if Joly (and his leather pants) choose someone to sleep with it will be her. Bossuet would be jealous except he's not sure which one he would be jealous of. “What are you talking about in here?”

“Dessert,” says Musichetta, and that gives Bossuet images. Wednesday night dinner and a movie are tradition among the three of them, but he's starting to consider skipping because _what_.

“Where did you get those pants?” he asks, because it turns out he's not the best at subtlety.

Joly turns red. “My Secret Santa. They're kind of … tight.”

“Yes, yes they are.” Musichetta finishes plating the brownies and takes them out to the dining room, where at least Joly's pants will be safely put away under the table. And so, handily, will be Bossuet's reaction to Joly's pants. “Out of curiosity, why did your Secret Santa give you leather pants?”

Joly turns even redder. “Maybe possibly for seduction reasons.”

Bossuet's heart sinks somewhere to the vicinity of his shoes. Maybe below his shoes. His soul is in his soles. This is not the time for puns. “Who are you supposed to be seducing?”

“People. Humans.” Joly takes a bite of brownie and chews it sort of desperately, maybe because Musichetta makes really chewy brownies or maybe because he wants to avoid either of them asking a question.

“Humans are a good start,” Bossuet ventures. “Much better than the alternatives. Unless you want to seduce ghosts? I feel like ghosts can't properly appreciate leather.”

“Specific humans?” Musichetta asks. Musichetta is much braver than Bossuet is. Possibly it is one of the reasons he is I love with her. Crushing on her. He is unclear as to his feelings, mostly because he tries not to think about them very much.

“Yes. Apparently I've been pining.” That's a good sign. Maybe. Bossuet will choose to believe it's a good sign, pessimism is boring, and if it's not a good sign then at least he won't have his hopes up for long. “For the two of you. In case you were wondering who. It's totally cool if you weren't.”

Musichetta starts eating her brownie. The _traitor_. Bossuet makes himself answer instead. “I was definitely wondering. That's a good answer.” Joly lights up with a grin, which is honestly almost as bad as the leather pants. “Musichetta?”

She finishes her brownie. That was fast. “I'm all for that answer. Both of us?” Joly nods. “Bossuet?” He nods too. “Okay, that's … very good information to have.”

“What about you?” That's Joly. Good. Bossuet is about done with coherent words. He wonders if Valjean will cry if they all call in sick tomorrow. Probably not, but probably Marius would, he's the one who has to call for substitutes.

“Yes. To both.” She looks at them both very seriously. “I think maybe we could break tradition this once. I don't think I'm in the mood to watch movies.”

Bossuet swallows. “So what are you in the mood to do?”

Musichetta smiles at him. “I think we should take Joly out of those pants.”

“Breaking tradition sounds like an awesome plan,” says Joly, and Musichetta leans to the side to kiss him, which is almost as mind-bendingly hot as the leather pants only also jealousy-causing.

Like they sense the jealousy, they break apart a second later, and then Joly is kissing Bossuet, and Musichetta is holding their hands, and Bossuet cares a lot less if Marius cries about all three of them being out all of a sudden. Musichetta is the only one of them with a classroom, anyway.

“I am going to give your Secret Santa _so many flowers_ ,” he says when Joly pulls away, and then none of them says much for quite some time.

*

Enjolras finger-paints a tree. It isn't exactly what he intended, and it isn't exactly a big gesture the way he almost wanted his picture in the book to be, but he finger-painted with Grantaire once, so at least it's a reference.

Combeferre is over, frowning down at correcting some multiplication tables while they talk about their students, and occasionally he looks up to shake his head at Enjolras while he fusses over setting up the paints and the paper.

“What?” Enjolras asks when he finally catches Combeferre looking.

“You're going to a lot of effort for this.”

“Of course I am. It's the one gift I'm giving to one of my friends this year, I'd like it to turn out well.” The background is actually watercolored, which may be cheating, but Enjolras hopes Grantaire won't care. He seems fond of multimedia work. He covers his fingers with brown paint so he can start working on the trunk and branches.

“R will love the book regardless of what your picture in it looks like.”

“But I'd like him to like mine. It's my book, after all.”

Combeferre hums. “I'm not saying it's a bad thing. I'm just saying that I wonder how much of this effort you would have gone to for anyone else.”

Enjolras frowns. “Of course I would. You're all my friends. You might have been easier, and I wouldn't have had to resort to enlisting the whole school.” He goes back to making sure one of the branches follows the right path. It's turning into one of his favorite trees from the park, one of the old ones that's had names and hearts carved into it over the years and went on growing in defiance of the injuries. “Have you received your present yet, by the way?”

“No, not yet. I'm nowhere close to the only one, though, so I don't feel slighted. What about you?”

“Nothing yet.” Enjolras stares down at the paper. It hasn't got the ease of Grantaire's lines, but then again, Enjolras isn't an art teacher. His work doesn't need to look like Van Gogh using finger-paints. “I still don't know why you're so curious about the project for Grantaire.”

“Not curious, precisely. It just seems unlikely, given how much the two of you interacted before. I honestly thought you would make a donation in his name.”

“As I've said, he deserves a good present.” He makes another branch. “I don't know what else to say about it.”

Combeferre flips to his next assignment to grade and frowns at it. “I'll leave it, then. I was just curious, really. I've known you to put less thought into projects for your class, and that is definitely saying something.”

“Have you given your present, then? I haven't asked about that yet.”

“I have. But I'm not going to tell you any more about that.” Combeferre smirks at him. “Not all of us are as bad at secrets as you are. I should probably be applauding you for not just walking up to R and asking what he wants for Christmas.”

Enjolras chooses to ignore the teasing and finishes making his branches instead. Some of them don't look very good, but that's why he saved the leaves for later. Hopefully that will help. He goes to wash the brown off his hands at his sink. “I think he'll like it,” he finally says when he goes back and starts setting up the green paint. “What about you?”

“He'll love it, Enjolras. It's from you.”

There are questions to ask about that, Enjolras knows, but he's not quite sure what they are, or what they should be, so he leaves it, putting his fingertips in the green paint so he can make leaves out of fingerprints and going to work.

*

Feuilly has thought of and discarded at least twenty ideas for Éponine's gift. He isn't like Enjolras, desperately trying for a good idea—his problem is more the opposite, really. All the ideas are good, he's just not sure what she'd like best. If he had the money, he would get her several of them, but he doesn't, and he thinks she would be made uncomfortable by getting too much anyway.

He could ask for help: from R, most likely, or maybe from Combeferre, who goes for cocktails with Éponine once a week or so, or even from Gavroche, if he could find a way to convince Gavroche not to tell his sister who was asking about her. In the end, though, he'd rather ask Éponine herself, so he turns up at the door to her office on Thursday afternoon when almost everyone else is working on the Nutcracker and knocks.

Éponine smiles when she sees who it is. “What can I do for you? You never visit me.”

Feuilly sits down on the couch in her room, though it doesn't have a very good vantage point on her. It's the only adult-sized piece of furniture in the room that she isn't sitting on, though, so he's willing to deal with it. “I'm avoiding the _Nutcracker_ preparations. I've had three of my girls crying over having to be snowflakes instead of Clara, because of course if one of them gets to be a major character the rest of them should as well, so I'm sick of it.”

Now that he's looking, Éponine seems to be untangling a mess of green yarn on her desk. She looks down when she sees him noticing. “I've been learning how to knit. I'm trying to make Gav a scarf as part of his Christmas gift, but I keep getting tangled up.”

“Here, I'll help, it'll go faster with two of us.” Feuilly goes over to lean against her desk and takes the mess of knots to start untangling some of the worse ones.

“Thank you. I'm not exactly great at this, I learned everything from YouTube tutorials.”

“You should ask Cosette, I know she knits.”

Éponine grimaces, and Feuilly winces and thinks about apologizing. He knows her relationship (or lack thereof) with Cosette is a complicated one. “I might, but not until after the holiday party.” She goes a little pink. “I learned for the Secret Santa.”

Feuilly smiles. “That's a great idea.”

“It was the best I could come up with, anyway, and R helped me some. He doesn't knit, but he's good at figuring out skills with his hands.”

“I'm sure she loves it.”

Éponine shrugs like maybe it doesn't matter. “She's been wearing it ever since I gave it to her, anyway. That says something.”

“You haven't had a present yet?”

She shakes her head. “No, I haven't been worrying about getting one too much. I was more worried about dealing with things for Cosette. But that's out of my hands now, and she and Marius have been grinning at each other more than usual ever since I delivered it, so maybe I got my message across.”

If it wouldn't make her uncomfortable, Feuilly would tell Éponine how much he admires her. The two of them haven't had easy lives, in their own ways, and it's not something either of them has ever talked about. Maybe they should, sometime. “What would you want, then? If you could choose right now, that is.”

“What a question. Do you have a gift yet?”

“I do, actually. As of this morning. Gift certificates to a few local businesses I keep meaning to try, and a heap of various flavors of organic chocolate. Speaking of which.” He produces a hazelnut bar from his bag. “I'm allergic, do you want it?”

Éponine grabs for it, and he smiles and hands it over. “I never say no to chocolate, I don't care what the flavoring is, they could put arsenic in and I would die happy.” Chocolate is one of the options he discarded as not thoughtful enough for what he wants to give Éponine, but maybe he should reconsider. “What do I want? I don't know. Clarity. A week in Aruba. College fund for Gav. A week living my life like I'm in a movie.”

“All good things to want.” And not really helpful for his purposes, but it isn't as though that's all Feuilly came to see her for. “And I second the week in Aruba. When you become a teacher they should just automatically schedule you free tropical vacations once a year.”

“Now that sounds like the life, if you ask me. Working with kids _and_ getting the glory. A break from reality is good every once in a while.”

A break from reality he can maybe provide, in some form. He'll have to think about it a little more, but at least it's a direction to go in. He isn't going to sneeze at that. “Tell me about it,” he says, and frowns at the clock. “Think we should go to the gym and help everyone else with preparations? I've had a little bit of a break, anyway.”

To his surprise, when he stands and holds his arm out in offer to Éponine, she stands up, smooths down her sweater, and puts her arm through his to let him escort her to the gym like they're in an old movie. A break from reality indeed. Feuilly makes a few mental notes and starts talking about the show on their way to the gym.

*

Friday morning, Enjolras drops the book at the copy center before he goes to work, pictures organized by class with the teachers' work leading each section and the adults without a specific classroom in a special section at the end. “It should be ready by the end of the day on Monday,” says the woman behind the counter when he hands it over and explains his specifications.

“Monday is fine,” he says, since he doesn't really have much choice on that. He'll just have to give it to R on Tuesday, he doubts he'll be the last one to give his present. He still hasn't received one, after all.

He's sent off with a receipt and a reminder to stop by Monday afternoon, and he gets to school only a few minutes later than usual.

There are three unexpected things in his room when he gets there: first, a stack of pictures (luckily in a manila folder) marked with a frowning face and an apology for lateness from Courfeyrac (he'll have to put them in as loose pages in his book, there's no helping it at this point); second, a wrapped package that is presumably from his gift exchange partner sitting on his desk; third, Grantaire.

“I am fairly sure I left that door locked when I left.”

R puts his hands in the air like he's expecting Enjolras to arrest him or something. “It was unlocked when I got here.” He nods at the package on the table. “Probably from that. Must have begged custodial or someone in the office to let them in. What is it?”

“I don't know, R, I haven't opened it yet. To what do I owe the honor?”

He wanders over to the windows and peers out them. “I figured if we're the kinds of friends who visit each other in their rooms before and after school now, I should make some of the moves.”

He sounds nervous, and that makes Enjolras feel more guilty than he cares to admit. He must have been terrible to Grantaire if he's this surprised at Enjolras making overtures of friendship. They've been much better not fighting this year than last year, but the last few weeks have made a marked improvement. “Well, you're welcome. You can watch me open my present before the kids come in.”

“I'm jealous, I haven't had one yet.”

“Have you given one yet?” Enjolras asks instead of saying any of the other things he could say. He's bad at secrets, because anything starts sounding incriminating after a while.

“I'm planning on it for Monday. I'm giving Bossuet a breadbox.”

Enjolras looks up from the wrapping he's carefully undoing in order to stare at him for a second. “Why a breadbox? Also, isn't this supposed to stay anonymous?”

“Come on, it's not as though you're going to tell dear Lesgles and spoil the surprise. It's a breadbox because he always asks me if his gifts are bigger than a breadbox, and so I decided to give him one in order to stump that question. It would be more fun if it weren't anonymous, but a person can't have everything.”

Enjolras has nothing useful at all to say to that, so he goes back to his package. Which is not bigger than a breadbox, though he doesn't actually have any certainty as to how big a breadbox actually is. He probably couldn't fit a loaf of bread inside it, anyway. “I think he'll appreciate that,” he finally says when the silence stretches out.

“Of course he will. And of course you open packages like my grandmother, Enjolras, come _on_. We're not getting any younger.”

He gets the last of the paper off the package and finds a plain cardboard box underneath. “I wonder if I should be worried,” he says belatedly. If Courfeyrac left him pictures, Courfeyrac might well be his gift exchange partner, and he wouldn't put it past Courfeyrac to leave a box of sex toys on his desk. “What do you think the chances are that if a student walked in in thirty seconds they would be traumatized?”

“Buck up, fifth-graders don't usually know what dildos look like, and if they do, then there should be priorities beyond your embarrassment.”

Enjolras makes a face at him, but that's a fair assessment, so he opens up the top of the box with a nearby pair of scissors and nervously looks inside. It's a cactus. “It's a cactus,” he announces out loud, in hopes that it will sound less absurd that way.

Grantaire snorts. “An unkillable plant that still manages to get in a dig about you being prickly. I'm impressed.”

Enjolras lifts it out of the packaging. It's a nice cactus, anyway, in a good brown clay pot, with a little metal lizard nestled next to the base for reasons he doesn't understand. “I can't keep it in here past today, one of my students will try to touch it. But it's nice, I suppose.” He frowns at Grantaire. “Though I think I should be taking offense at that.”

“You deny you're prickly?” Grantaire waves his hand before Enjolras has to answer that. “I'd say it's a good gift, I'm impressed. I wouldn't have liked to have had you.”

Enjolras looks back down at the cactus, stung. “Thanks.”

“Don't get your panties in a twist. It's just that nothing would live up.”

“Apparently this does a fine job at it.”

“You should name it,” Grantaire announces, from closer than he was a few seconds ago. Enjolras tries not to startle and fails, snapping to look up at him. He's right next to Enjolras, and he didn't even notice him coming closer. “Cacti deserve names. They're like cars and computers and housepets. You wouldn't name a spider plant, but you should name a cactus.”

“I'll think about it,” Enjolras promises, and puts the cactus up on a cabinet where the kids will have to be really determined to get to it. “Now, I'm sorry to kick you out, but I'm running late this morning and I have a lecture on Ancient Greece to give to my sixth graders first thing this morning.”

That makes R smile in a way that makes Enjolras wonder if he's missing something. “Sure thing, I'll talk to you later.” He's out the door before Enjolras can say anything by way of a goodbye, and Enjolras shakes the conversation off so he can concentrate on his lesson plans.

Enjolras does stop by to see him at lunch, though, when Grantaire is putting on his scarf and gloves for recess duty. “I named it Robespierre,” he says. “The cactus. In case you were wondering.”

He walks out on Grantaire's smile.


	4. One Week Until the Holiday Party

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wrote this and the last chapter in a rush last night while the power was out. I apologize for any mistakes from typing in the dark, and will fix them as soon as my power comes back on!

Enjolras stops in the hall Monday afternoon when Grantaire calls his name before he can leave. “Where are you off to?” he asks when Enjolras stops and turns. “Aren't you supposed to be helping with Nutcracker rehearsal?”

“I have to run out and pick something up first.”

“Something? That's mysterious.”

“A present I've been waiting to be ready. For my mother.” He passive-aggressively donated to the Green Party on his parents' behalf, actually, but Grantaire doesn't need to know that yet. “I'll be back before the kids have even been shepherded into position, I promise.”

“You have a secret lover, don't you?”

Enjolras almost drops his briefcase. “I _what_?”

Grantaire nods like Enjolras's shock cofirms the truth of his conjecture rather than the opposite. “A lover. Thus your strange behavior the last few weeks.”

“What strange behavior? Talking to you? I don't think I've done anything else different. By that logic, wouldn't _you_ be my secret lover?” They both gape at each other for a few seconds. Enjolras hopes he isn't blushing quite as much as he feels like he's blushing.

“Unless I'm a clever cover. It's probably some hot young barista you've seduced while picking up your morning coffee.”

“I drink the coffee in the teacher's room.”

“You do? You poor thing. Never mind, then, a bookshop owner.”

“Mr. Mabeuf owns the nearest independent bookstore and he isn't exactly my type.” Enjolras rolls his eyes. He doesn't have the time to argue with Grantaire of all people over his nonexistent love life, especially since, as he made clear, Grantaire is the only possible candidate for the position of lover at the moment.

He's going to have to think about that phrasing later.

“I'm hearing a lot of excuses but nothing of you actually telling me you aren't madly in love.”

“I'm not, I'm not going out to meet a secret lover. I just have to pick up a present for my mother, and I'll be back in twenty minutes at most.”

Grantaire still looks suspicious, but he finally nods and Enjolras retreats before he has to answer any more awkward questions. Or before he comes up with any more awkward questions he should be asking himself.

The copy center has his book ready when he gets there. It's a sturdy binding and the girl behind the counter grins at him when she passes it over. “I hope your boyfriend likes it,” she tells him, and Enjolras doesn't question the assumption, because if he does he suspects he's not going to turn out to be much good at the Nutrcracker rehearsal he still has to show up for.

Enjolras leaves the blanket in his car, swaddled in his emergency blanket, when he gets back to school, and drops into a seat in the corner of the gym just in time to watch the second graders start doing their snowflake dance, which actually seems to be some kind of martial arts routine. Bahorel is going to get them in trouble someday.

R turns up less than five minutes later, in his paint-covered smock, and slides down the wall next to Enjolras's chair until he's sitting on the floor next to him, grinning up expectantly. “Where's your mother's gift?”

“Inside my car. Why would I bring it inside?”

“In order to prove you didn't sneak out for an afternoon quickie.”

Enjolras looks nervously around for any nearby students, but luckily they mostly seem to be distracted by what's happening on the stage or gathered in a knot around Fantine, who seems to have made up lyrics to one of Tchaikovsky's musical themes. “I shouldn't have to prove that because it isn't true, R. For God's sake.”

“So you say.” Grantaire draws his knees up to his chest, smiling over at the kids when one of them hits a completely wrong note and Fantine tries very obviously not to wince. His hair is a mess, and there's yellow paint splashed across one side, and he's sitting within arm's reach. They're friends. Enjolras could try to get the paint out of his hair.

He's inexplicably relieved when Joly shows up, looking a little wild, and pulls Grantaire to his feet. “Sorry, Enjolras, I need to steal R for a minute. Have him back in a jiffy, though,” he says, and pulls him off to a corner to have what looks like a very important conversation, judging by the amount of talking with his hands Joly is doing (though Grantaire keeps laughing, so it can't be _that_ important).

Enjolras means to wait, since he hasn't got any official duties in the production, but a few of his students turn up to ask about his assignment on winter holidays throughout the world and by the time he thinks to look for Grantaire again he's up on stage trying to shepherd Musichetta's class into some kind of dance routine.

*

Marius eats lunch with Cosette on Tuesday.

Well, Marius maybe doesn't _eat lunch_ per se, he might actually sit there staring at her in a way that he's pretty sure Combeferre and Enjolras (passing by on their way to recess duty) think is creepy. But his lunch is in front of him, anyway, and she's eating hers, wrapped up in a pink scarf because it's cold in the teachers' room and talking about the kids' show and the holiday gift exchange. Marius thinks he maybe manages to say a few things, but Courfeyrac has been telling him for years that he always goes too fast too far with girls he really likes and that maybe he should back off a little. So he is preemptively backing off. And has been for a while, which seems to have worked, Cosette-wise.

Unfortunately, he doesn't have time to see how well it works because Feuilly runs into the room fifteen minutes into lunch and makes an apologetic face at Cosette. “One of your girls had an accident on the playground, refuses to be helped by anyone but you, and Joly might cry. Do you mind going to help?”

Cosette shuts her lunchbox immediately and makes a distressed face at Marius. “I'm so sorry, but I've got to go, can I take a rain check on the rest of lunch? I promise, later this week sometime, if things aren't too crazy. Or after break. But we will do this again.” She kisses him on the cheek, more than enough to render him speechless, and then she's out the door, Feuilly on his heels, leaving Marius frozen until he manages to shake it off.

He manages to get his lunch eaten in the next few minutes, but it doesn't really taste very good when he's worrying about whether a rain check means she'll actually follow through or not.

When he can't procrastinate and hope she'll happen to return any longer, he sighs and goes back to the office. Valjean is out for the afternoon for a meeting with the superintendent and one of the other elementary school principals in the district office, so he's surprised when someone else is in there. (And maybe jumps a little and flails around for something to use as a weapon.) He's less surprised when he realizes it's Éponine. “What can I do for you?” he asks, giving his best smile.

“I just came in to visit, nobody's schedule to see me right now so I ran away. Also, I'm on a mission.” She produces an envelope from her pocket. “This isn't from me, I got it in my school mailbox this morning inside a bigger envelope saying that I'm the proper messenger. So I don't know what this is but it's probably from your Secret Santa.”

“Gift exchange partner,” he corrects, because he's heard Valjean and Cosette say it enough times that it's ingrained. And also Enjolras glares at anyone he catches calling it a Secret Santa and Marius wants to live until his thirtieth birthday and preferably longer. Death by Enjolras would be terrifying, especially since now Enjolras can brain him with the cactus Marius gave him, which in retrospect is why he should never have listened to Courfeyrac and bought it. Nobody should ever listen to Courfeyrac.

“Sure, yes, fine, are you going to open it?”

Marius takes the envelope. It's red instead of plain white, probably in deference to it being a holiday present, and when he very cautiously opens it he's glad he was cautious because it means he only gets a little bit of glitter on the green button-up he wore because Cosette said when he walked her home last week that green is her favorite color. “Always glitter,” he says.

“We work at an elementary school,” Éponine points out, leaning on the window sill.

That is a very good point, and Marius nods to acknowledge it. He takes the paper inside the envelope out and finds a fancy certificate for dinner at the French restaurant a few towns over, for two. “Dinner for two,” he tells Éponine when she doesn't make a move to take it from him to see like most of their friends would.

“Oh? Where?”

“The nice place, Rue Plumet.”

“Fancy.”

Marius bites his lip and looks down at it. “I wonder why they wanted you to deliver it. I mean … um, you're great, Éponine, you really are, but I don't want to—shit, I mean shoot, that sounded bad, but—”

“Marius, it's fine.” Éponine sighs and looks out the window. “I know you don't. I'm probably supposed to deliver it to tell you to ask Cosette.”

He blinks down at the paper and then over at her. “Why you in particular? Just because I listen to you?”

Éponine sighs, but she's smiling. Smiling is a good sign, with Éponine. She doesn't do it unless she means it. “Yeah, Marius, because you listen to me. So ask Cosette out for dinner. Say New Year's Eve. Make a reservation as soon as she says yes. And … tell her I told you to ask? I think she'll get it.”

Cosette might, but Marius doesn't. “Is there something going on with the two of you? Ep, if you don't like her, I'll ...” Be heartbroken, probably. Éponine is one of his favorite people, but he's not sure he could give up on Cosette even if Éponine hated her.

“Marius, seriously. I wouldn't have told you to ask if I didn't like her. Do it with my blessing, or whatever.” She shoves herself off the window and ruffles his hair, rolling her eyes when he manages to stumble and spill glitter on both of them as a result. “You are so stupid.”

He ducks his head. “Thanks, Éponine. I mean, not for calling me stupid. But for the blessing, I guess.”

“God, people are getting together at an alarming rate this month. It's something in the water. You and Cosette, whatever is happening with Musichetta and Joly and Bossuet, Grantaire and Enjolras ...”

He blinks at her. “What about Grantaire and Enjolras?”

“So stupid.”

“No, I mean, last I heard Grantaire was pining and Enjolras … wasn't.”

Éponine laughs. “Well, now they both might be. Who knows? And then things are weird with the Secret Santa, I think it's making people think.”

“Do you have a present yet?”

She looks down, sticking her hands in her pockets. “Yeah. Not really sure what to do with it, but I do.”

“What is it?”

“Ballroom dancing lessons, an eight-class thing for two.” She frowns. “Maybe I should give them to you and Cosette.”

“Don't, Éponine. Your gift exchange partner gave them to you for a reason.” He smiles, an idea occurring. “Maybe whoever it is is planning on asking if they can join you!”

“Because that kind of thing happens outside of movies.” Éponine pauses and bites her lip, thinking about it like she's suddenly suspicious. “Or maybe it does,” she adds, and then shakes her head and looks back at him. “I guess I'll keep the dance classes, they don't start until the new year and if nothing else I can always take Gav, he always has excess energy to work off. Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I hear the dulcet sounds of everyone returning from recess and Combeferre asked me to cover quiet reading time in the fifth grade today because he's got an appointment.”

Marius waves her out and has about thirty seconds to start thinking about his afternoon's work before Courfeyrac pokes his head through the door. He's wearing the bowtie from his gift exchange partner again when Marius hasn't seen him wear the same one twice in a week ever, which probably says a lot about how much he likes it. “Mr. Pontmercy, my kids are with Bahorel right now working on their dancing, so I thought I would wander by and say hello. How was your lunch with the beauteous Cosette?”

“Not long enough,” Marius says, frowning now that he's reminded of that. “One of her students got hurt on the playground and she had to go help.”

“Well, I'm sure you'll have time in the future.”

Marius nods and holds up the envelope Éponine gave him again, spilling more glitter on himself in the process. “Yes, I'm going to ask her to the Rue Plumet, I got a certificate from my exchange partner.”

“Seems like all sorts of people are getting their gifts today. You, Éponine, Grantaire … well, I haven't seen Grantaire, but I know what his Secret Santa was intending. And Musichetta has some new perfume, and didn't Valjean get a package in his mailbox this morning?”

“A pocketwatch,” says Marius. “You might know better than me, I've hardly talked to anyone today.”

“I always know better than you,” Courfeyrac says, but he's smiling, so Marius doesn't take offense. “Now, I have forty minutes before I have to collect my kids, so I'm going to tell you all the gossip, and then you're going to tell me all about the date you plan to take Cosette on.”

*

Enjolras stops by Grantaire's classroom after school on Tuesday. He left his present in there in the morning while Grantaire was out visiting Éponine, wrapped up in plain paper and nice ribbon he begged off Cosette, and he hasn't seen Grantaire all day.

When he knocks on the door, though, R is paging through the book with a smile on his face, and he grins when he looks up and sees Enjolras. “Everyone in this school is a _sneak_ , and I am impressed. Were you being shifty because you wanted art lessons? That may be a better explanation than the secret lover anyway.”

Enjolras comes in. “Everyone worked hard to keep it a secret. And I didn't want art lessons. That sort of happened on its own. I thought I might walk you to staff meeting, if you don't mind?”

“Of course not. Though we don't have to be there for fifteen minutes, you should come and look.”

That implies that R thinks Enjolras hasn't seen the whole thing, so he probably hasn't guessed it was Enjolras who gave it to him in the first place. That's a good thing. “Are the pictures good?”

“They're amazing. All the kids tried so hard. And all of you did too.” He grins and gestures Enjolras over, where the book is open to a picture from a fourth-grader of what Enjolras is reliably informed is a firefighter riding a dragon. “There's even this one little picture in there, someone's effort at a tree, must have been misfiled, though, I'm sure it was meant to be popped in with the first grade, because I was just doing fingerpainting with them.”

Enjolras laughs. “Oh, shut up, I thought it was a nice gesture.”

Grantaire grins over his shoulder at him. “And it was, Michelangelo. I mock because I'm delighted, really. To make you stoop to this? Someone must have had to be convincing. I suspect Fantine.”

Enjolras waits for Grantaire to turn back to the book, flipping a page, before he frowns at that. Of course Grantaire would suspect Fantine, or Éponine, or Joly, or really anyone but Enjolras himself. Which is fair, given his suspicion of Enjolras paying attention to him. “Why Fantine?”

“Her kind of sentimentality. The thoughtfulness suggests Éponine or Joly or maybe even Combeferre, and the sneakiness suggests … nobody. We're terrible at sneaky. Maybe Combeferre again, or possibly Cosette. But it's sweet, and it's the kind of sweet Fantine often is.”

“I suppose you'll find out on Friday. Did you ever give Bossuet his present?”

“I am reliably informed that he loves it and that he is keeping nefarious things that are not bread in it. Joly is having a very interesting couple of weeks.”

Enjolras decides he's not going to think about that. “There's certainly been a wide variety. Courfeyrac is very happy with his bow tie and the promise of more, and Combeferre hasn't had his yet, but I'm sure he'll like it based on everyone else.”

“And you're getting on well with Robespierre?”

“Haven't killed it yet.”

“Come on, if you're giving him a name, you have to commit. Pronouns, Enjolras, or Robespierre will be terribly sad.” Grantaire flips a few more pages, past a ballerina and a horse and something that looks like someone's attempt at Picasso. “I suppose we should go to staff meeting so Valjean doesn't frown at us. Like we're going to get everything done, talking about the Nutcracker and the holiday party and the Secret Santa.”

“Nondenominational anonymous holiday gift exchange,” Enjolras corrects automatically, and doesn't mind too much when Grantaire just laughs at him.

Grantaire puts the book down, shutting it carefully and smoothing the cover (Enjolras couldn't decide what to use for the cover and chose plain green instead of having to decide) before he stands up. His room is in the farthest wing from the conference room where they have staff meeting, so they're the last ones in.

Combeferre raises his eyebrows when he sees who Enjolras is walking in with, and a few other people seem to have reactions as well, but for the most part they're focused on Bahorel talking about his new collection of martial arts videos, courtesy of his gift exchange partner.

Valjean smiles when Grantaire and Enjolras come in and gestures them to sit down before he stands himself, cutting Bahorel off before he can start enthusing about Krav Maga or whatever it is that he's learning next.

Courfeyrac passes over meeting minutes with a wiggle of his eyebrows that Enjolras chooses to ignore, and Enjolras sits down next to Grantaire and pays more attention to him doodling than to the meeting. It isn't as though they're talking about anything particularly important today.

*

Musichetta loves her students. She loves being a teacher, and spending time with them and all the strange things they come out with, and she can't imagine doing anything else. She loves story time, and crafts, and even teaching them math. She loves helping with the concerts, especially the Nutcracker.

However, these are extenuating circumstances, because now Musichetta has _boyfriends_ , and they haven't spent a night apart for the last five nights, though they've been at different apartments, and Musichetta really wants to be in the nurse's office or the tech den, not telling one of her boys that she believes in him, she really does think he's going to do fine in the production.

She finds Jehan in the break room during morning recess, and she might not be very close to him, but she decides she's close enough to him to wine. “Is it Christmas break yet?”

Jehan grins at her. “Missing your boyfriends?”

“Joly has terrible timing.”

Jehan blinks. “Joly made the first move?”

“Joly made the first move necessary. Damn him. If we'd waited until we were all pleasantly drunk and under the mistletoe this Friday, I wouldn't be tempted to skip my afternoon classes to go jump him. Or Bossuet. I'm not picky.”

He laughs. “We're all really happy for you, though. We've been waiting forever. Really, longer than Enjolras and Grantaire, longer than Cosette and Marius, it's been the three of you.”

Musichetta smiles and goes over to the coffeemaker. The pot is a little cold, but she doesn't mind. It still contains caffeine. “Well, that's all over, Cosette and Marius are pretty obviously nearly there, and if Enjolras escorting R to staff meeting yesterday was any indication, the tension there is nearly finished as well. Who are we going to speculate about after that.” She raises her eyebrows. “What about you? Do you have any affairs I should know about?”

Jehan blushes, which makes his “No, definitely not” very unconvincing.

“Now you have to tell me, you realize.”

“There really isn't anything going on. Maybe a little crush, but no big love story.” Jehan clears his throat. “What did you get from your gift exchange partner?”

“Perfume. Smells lovely. Way nicer than I could afford. Who do you have a crush on?”

“I got a homemade vest that looks like a Christmas present! I think I'm going to wear it on Friday for the party.”

Musichetta decides to be nice and doesn't press any more, because poor Jehan is bright red and she likes him too much to torture him. She'll leave that up to Courfeyrac. Unless. “Is it Courfeyrac?”

Jehan tilts his head like he's considering that match from all angles. “No,” he finally says.

“Fine, keep your secrets. We'll see how secret they stay when the mistletoe comes out on Friday. You know Marius will have bought some, they'll give him an excuse to make a move on Cosette.”

“Well, what happens under the mistletoe stays under the mistletoe.” Jehan pauses and considers that again. “Except when it doesn't.”

“We'll just have to see, won't we?” She takes a sip of her coffee and grimaces. Normally the teachers' room coffee is decent, but she's too lazy to do anything with it, and that on top of its lukewarm temperature is not doing any good. “It's the season to get together, I suppose. It means there's lots of warmth in the winter.”

“More for you than most of us, lucky. You get two people to cuddle with.” Jehan blows on his mug, probably mostly out of habit. “Maybe I'll buy a dog.”

“Your Secret Santa should have thought of that.”

“I'm very glad they didn't, I love my new vest.”

Bossuet pokes his head in the room and beams when he sees her, coming the rest of the way in. “Joly is helping on the playground, one of Courfeyrac's kids stuck his tongue to a pole, but a little bird told me you weren't on recess duty so I thought I'd come and find you.”

Jehan smiles in between them. “I think I'll go back to my classroom and make sure everything is set up in there. It's a zoo this morning, I need to beg for more parent classroom volunteers after break if the whole winter is going to be like this. I can only fasten so many snowpants at once. It's good to see you two doing this.”

Musichetta blows him a kiss, gives Bossuet a real one, and then waits until he's out of earshot before turning to her boyfriend (her _boyfriend_. Really, Musichetta can be forgiven her gloating, she has two gorgeous wonderful boyfriends now. Most people have to be content with one). “How are you today?”

“Much better now I'm here with you,” he says, and kisses her hand, because Bossuet likes to be an old-fashioned knight sometimes. “I have plans for my breadbox later.”

“That doesn't sound noticeably less dirty because you use the word 'breadbox,' just so you're aware.”

He grins at her. “That's pretty much exactly the point.”

“Jehan has a crush on someone.”

“Someone here?” He raises his eyebrows, and hums when she nods. “Maybe it's Valjean. Two Jeans in one relationship, we'd never know who wears the pants.”

Musichetta laughs, because she knows she shouldn't encourage him but she can't really help it. “Probably not. If nothing else, I think Cosette would cry. And also possibly Fantine, though she's much more subtle about things. Maybe I'll become one of those people who matchmakes everyone as soon as I'm in a relationship.”

“Like Bahorel. Though in all fairness he apparently didn't need to be in a relationship first.”

“We're all a load of matchmakers, there should be some kind of Anonymous group for it.” She kisses him again and sighs when the bell rings for the end of recess. “Work, work, work. You're coming over to my place after school, right? You and Joly can wait for me, I have Nutcracker rehearsal.”

“We'll wait for you,” he promises, and bows and lets her precede him out the door.

Musichetta _loves_ having boyfriends.

*

Enjolras definitely doesn't need to visit Grantaire anymore. He chose a present for him, he painted a picture for him, he checked and made sure his present was well-received. There's not much reason to go visit, not any more than he has to stop by Feuilly's room, or Joly's. Still, that's where his feet steer him at the end of the day on Wednesday, when the fifth grade is with Combeferre and the sixth grade is practicing their miniature skits with Fantine for the Nutcracker (nobody is going to get a thing done tomorrow, with all the last-minute rehearsing they have to do, even with an after school practice today).

R is with Cosette's kids, but he waves Enjolras in before Enjolras can duck away from the door. “Everyone,” he says, grinning across the room at Enjolras, “say hi to Mr. E, I think he came to join our class today.”

There's a ragged but cheerful general cry of “Hi, Mr. E!” One of the unexpected benefits of the art project for R is that it's made the younger grades much less intimidated by him.

“I didn't mean to interrupt, I thought you were free,” he says in an undertone when he makes it through the sea of easels to Grantaire.

“Cosette had to switch things around, Fantine wanted her to help with the sixth grade skits today. You don't mind joining?”

“Not at all, what are we doing today?”

Grantaire raises his voice. “Jessica, what are we doing today?”

“We're finger-painting,” says a little girl with glasses in the corner, and grins at Enjolras. “Mr. R says that the book gave him the idea.” He widens his eyes at her but she doesn't seem inclined to give away the secret. That's good. If he's committed this long he'd like to manage it until Friday.

“Well, finger-painting happens to be one of my favorite things to do,” he says, and goes over to one of the free easels, presumably from one of the kids who's out sick (or “out sick,” there are always a few parents who start their Christmas vacations early and don't want to actually say that, like they're high schoolers feeling guilty about skipping school or something). It's nowhere near the height he would need it at, but he doesn't mind too much. He ends up kneeling on the floor, sharing a palette of paints with a kid at the next easel.

It's the last twenty minutes of the day, but it's still blessedly quiet in Grantaire's room, quieter than any classroom Enjolras has been in or by all week. He selects his paints with care and makes his best attempt at a reindeer, in the spirit of the season and since most of the other kids seem to be sticking with a holiday theme. Every time he looks up, he catches Grantaire's eye, but he's always smiling, so Enjolras figures he's welcome, and not just being indulged.

In the last five minutes, Grantaire calls for a cleanup, and the kids rush the sink, washing off hands and arms, before laying their pictures flat (most of them are far closer to done than Enjolras is, since Enjolras got a much later start) and running to stand by the door, just in time for Cosette to come lead them back to their classroom. It's all down to an art, and soon enough Enjolras finds himself standing by the sink, washing the paint off his own hands. R just smudged his on his smock as he explicitly told the kids not to do, and his hands are still blue and green as a result.

“I'm sorry if I interrupted your class,” Enjolras says after a moment's peace. They'll be expected momentarily in the gym, but he'd like to have a quiet moment or two first.

“The kids got a kick out of it. It's nice for them to see us behaving without too much dignity. I don't want to give them the stupid idea that adulthood is any more dignified or sane than childhood.”

Enjolras thinks for a second about arguing that point, but the holiday exchange alone is reason enough to agree. “What ideas do you want to give them about adulthood?” he asks instead.

“Why do you think I work at an elementary school? I don't care to tell them how to be adults, I'm happy enough just letting them be kids. You can prepare them for the world. I want to help them enjoy it.”

Enjolras isn't sure what to say to that, so he just ends up smiling and going over to R's easel, looking to see what he was working on. His picture isn't much further along than Enjolras's, probably because of how much he was helping the students instead of working himself, but it's far above the work anyone else was doing, the start of a horse in the middle of running. “You do a good job of it,” he says when he notices Grantaire is hovering over his shoulder.

“Art? Or teaching the kids to enjoy the world?”

“Both, I suppose.” He turns. “The students adore you.”

“I do what I can.” There's silence for almost a minute, Enjolras caught without anything to say and Grantaire not seeming to feel the need to elaborate, and then R gives him a mischievous grin and ruffles Enjolras's hair. Enjolras swats him with the back of his hand and it's only a knock on the door that keeps it from being a fight more ridiculous than the ones Jehan's kindergarteners have over toys. “Come in,” Grantaire calls, and then he's halfway across the room scrubbing the last of the paint from his hands.

Éponine is the one who comes in, and she smiles at Grantaire before her eyes catch on Enjolras and she stops before saying whatever she was going to say. “Well, apparently I'm interrupting,” she finally says.

“What?” Enjolras winces at how high his voice sounds. He _feels_ as though he's been interrupted, but it isn't as though either of them was doing something to be embarrassed about.

“Not at all.” Grantaire sounds much more casual than Enjolras does, and when he turns away from the sink he just smiles like it's a normal day. “Enjolras crashed my last class of the day and we were girding our loins before going to smile at our adorable angels doing their rehearsal.”

“And I came to walk you to rehearsal, but I'm referring to interrupting whatever happened between the school bell ringing and me knocking. Since, correct me if I'm wrong, girding is not the loin activity that gets paint in people's hair.”

There isn't a mirror in the room, but judging by the quick and guilty look R throws in his direction, Enjolras is willing to believe that he got paint in his hair when it was ruffled. That leaves the question of what to do about it, of course, because it's waterproof paint but he doesn't really have the time to stick his head under the faucet in the teacher's room, not to mention that will lead to its own host of questions. “There have been no, as you so charmingly put it, loin activities in here. Grantaire was just messing my hair up, for which I'll have to kill him.”

“Kill him after we break for Christmas, nobody wants to find a sub for the next two days, all the subs are already out of town.” She raises her eyebrows at them. “So, are you two coming? Bossuet is going to be tape recording today so he doesn't get in the way of parents and their camera phones tomorrow, so I figure we should get ourselves some good seats.”

“Let's go,” says Grantaire, and ruffles Enjolras's hair again, probably just to make a point, on his way to the door.

Enjolras follows after, and ignores the incredulous looks he gets from all his friends when he shows up with his hair all in a mess and streaked with paint. He didn't do anything wrong, and neither did Grantaire, and it's none of their business anyway.

*

“You finally got your present!”

Combeferre smiles up at Courfeyrac from where he's sitting at his desk, a box set of Bill Nye DVDs that he's already planning to integrate into his curriculum. His students aren't brought up on the show these days, but he can change that. “Was it a matter of such concern to you?”

“Yes, it definitely was.” Courfeyrac sits down on one of the tables at the front of the room and grins at Combeferre. He isn't wearing a bowtie today, much less the one Combeferre gave him (though he's already worn that twice, so Combeferre shouldn't be greedy. There will be another on in January anyway). “Fantine got hers this morning, and you were the last two.”

“What did Fantine get?”

“A ukelele. I might steal it from her, it's prettily decorated and everything.”

“You play the ukelele?” Combeferre doesn't know everything about Courfeyrac, or not _quite_ everything, but things that make noise are among the things he feels he ought to know about him.

“Not yet, but I _could_.” He nods at the DVDs. “Those are perfect for you. You ridiculous nerd.” He shoves his hands in his pockets and swings his legs like he's a student and not a teacher. “I might have got you something—it's small, I swear. And I got Enjolras something too, you two are my best friends and Secret Santa or no Secret Santa, I wasn't going to let Christmas pass unmarked.”

Combeferre nods. He didn't get Courfeyrac get anything except the bowties, but he would have if he hadn't pulled his name, and Enjolras has a book waiting, wrapped in recycled newspaper, at Combeferre's apartment. “Thank you very much. We'll have to exchange them after school lets out. It isn't fair to do them before.” Courfeyrac just hums and swings his leg. “Not that you aren't welcome, but can I ask if you had a reason for your visit?”

“I definitely have a reason for my visit. I came to see if you're going home before tonight's performance. It's already almost four, I've been decorating the room for tomorrow's holiday party so I don't have to do it after the show. I could go home and make sure all my sugar cookie decorations are ready, but I figured if you're hanging around I could hang around. I have a book.”

“I think I'm staying. I have some workbooks to correct, and I can go down the street for dinner in an hour. You can join, if you don't mind dubious deli sandwiches.”

Courfeyrac beams. “When have I ever turned down possibly sketchy lunchmeat?”

“You make it sound so appetizing.”

“You really need to be a better cook. Everyone thinks you have it all together, but I'm the one who makes the nice food. I don't think that's fair.” He tugs his bag closer to him (it's fraying, Combeferre should have bought him a school bag, he was going to until he ran across the mention of the bowtie-of-the-month club and then he couldn't resist) and pulls out a book, a well-worn Bill Bryson Combeferre gave him for Christmas four years ago, when they were still in college. “Rereading,” he explains when he catches Combeferre looking. “Now, you do your work and I'll do my reading, and I'll drag you away when I get too hungry.”

They pass an hour in silence before Combeferre is the first one to give up, rubbing his temples and putting his work down. “Let's go get dinner,” he says, and Courfeyrac jumps, startled. “Sorry.”

“What's there to apologize for?” Courfeyrac hops off the table, shoving his book in his bag after dog-earing it (Combeferre tries not to wince). “I was just startled, that's all. By all means, let's do dinner. Do you want to drive? I'm trying to go easy on Susie. The poor thing doesn't like the cold.”

“Sure, we'll take mine.” He'll be back in his classroom, so he just grabs his wallet and his coat and shuts the door behind him, shepherded on by Courfeyrac, who seems to have brought the same things.

They pass Fantine, Bahorel, and Grantaire in the hallway, the three of them sitting having some kind of picnic, looking preemptively exhausted. Combeferre waves but doesn't interrupt their conversation, which seems to be about a recent movie judging by what he hears as he goes by. Everyone else, from what he can tell, has at least temporarily gone home, so it's easy to get to the car and out of the parking lot, listening with one ear while Courfeyrac talks about the presents everyone received and how good he thinks they are (though Combeferre is not expecting a lackluster review on any of them from Courfeyrac of all people).

“I feel like we haven't had a chance to catch up in a while,” Combeferre says when they get there. “The space between the holidays at school is always busy, I suppose.”

“Always has been,” Courfeyrac agrees, guiding them into line. “And this year more so than usual, you've got to admit. I think it's the Secret Santa. Suddenly everyone is pining for each other. Or getting together, Pontmercy is planning on asking Cosette out tomorrow. He's been gearing up to it all week.”

“And Joly and Bossuet and Musichetta worked things out.” Combeferre doesn't always know the gossip, but he definitely knows those three. And he's also one of the two people who knows Enjolras well enough to say “Enjolras is getting there, I think.”

“You don't think he's going to break R's heart?”

“Maybe a month ago he would have. You know Enjolras—all at once, and quickly. I doubt he'll hold onto his denial for very long.”

“I was hoping you'd say he falls in love fast and hard so I could make some kind of joke, you ought to leave me more openings.”

Combeferre rolls his eyes and gets to the head of the line. “A meatball sub and a hot cocoa,” he tells the girl behind the counter. “And whatever he wants, please.”

Courfeyrac makes a few objecting noises that subside when Combeferre just ignores them, and they pause the conversation about Enjolras until they've found a table while they wait for their order to be called. “So you think Enjolras is really going there?” Courfeyrac asks when they're settled. “I want to trust it, but it's been a long time since he went on even one date, and even if he's ready to date, R has been in love with him for a year. Maybe more than a year. I love Enjolras, but I don't want Grantaire to get his heart broken.”

“I don't think Enjolras has ever broken anyone's heart on purpose. And I don't think he'll do it by accident this time.”

“I made Marius buy mistletoe for the party. Hopefully that will get them sorted out.”

Combeferre snorts. “Mistletoe doesn't exactly solve all problems.”

“It solves a few. I seem to remember a party or two ...”

“That we don't talk about,” Combeferre interrupts, just in time for their food to arrive. There's a minute while they get everything set, so Combeferre can steal Courfeyrac's pickle and Courfeyrac can steal his chips. “Just don't be disappointed if everything doesn't go your way tomorrow.”

“Everything has been going my way all month. My roommate is going to stop pining, one of my best friends is going to make out with his soulmate ...”

“You're far too invested in their love lives. Haven't you got one of your own to worry about?”

Courfeyrac gives him a look through his lashes and Combeferre has to work to keep his face from giving any of his thoughts away. “Maybe. Not too sure yet, but you never know. Maybe there will be a Christmas miracle. Now, do you want to hear the story of how one of my kids came up with the scientific method on her own today?”

Combeferre smiles and relaxes, feeling oddly as though he's had a reprieve. “Of course I do. Tell me all about this budding scientist,” he says, and joins in the conversation until they lose track of time and have to eat the last few bites of their dinner at top speed so they can make it back to school before all the parents start showing up.

*

The gym is packed with parents and siblings both younger than older, everyone bundled up against the snow that started falling sometime around five. Enjolras has shaken hands with parents and said hello to a few of last year's sixth graders here to see younger siblings perform, and he goes to the back wall to lean since all the chairs are full just as the lights go down.

Grantaire finds him as the curtain goes up, leaning against the wall next to him and giving him a brief smile. “Mind if I watch with you?”

“It's a pleasure,” Enjolras assures him. It's the first time they've spoken since the paint incident yesterday, but he's glad R assumes all is forgiven and forgotten, since it is.

The first scene is the girl who plays Clara, Feuilly's student, and her brother, played by one of Cosette's second-graders, decorating the tree while the rest of the kids sing “Deck the Halls” from around the room, trading some dialogue that Enjolras suspects they're mostly making up on the spot. From the beginning, the audience is willing to coo over them, and any fear Enjolras had of disaster disappears.

He's seen the ballet a few times, so even though this is his first time watching the production in full, he knows the story as it goes along: Spieldenner and his toys, the introduction of the nutcracker, the rats (the kindergarten in fine form, playing some kind of game of tag with the Rat Queen directing them and Mary, the girl playing Clara, screaming convincingly). The nutcracker prince shows up, the head of his costume obviously Grantaire's work.

“Good job,” Enjolras says under his breath while there's a lot of dialogue mostly muffled by the mask.

“Didn't anybody tell you it's bad manners to speak at the theater?” Grantaire returns, and smiles at him when Enjolras ducks his head. He seems to relax after that, and gets much closer to touching Enjolras than he did before, and Enjolras keeps his silence.

Snowflakes hum Tchaikovsky's theme while they do some kind of leaping, gymnastic dance that has several parents in the audience wincing, and then all the candy dances are up, and Enjolras laughs where he's meant to (and a few times where he isn't, but he's hardly the only one doing that), and accepts the nudge to his ribs he gets at the costumes he helped on, giving them in turn for the ones he recognizes as Grantaire's contributions.

The whole thing is over in forty-five minutes, including a rousing singalong of “Jingle Bells” at the end led by a first-grader who didn't seem to realize that a curtain call was just for bowing. Enjolras claps as hard as he can and stays to the back when the lights come up. The night is for the kids, and for Fantine and Bahorel and R even if he won't take the credit for as much as he did. They've proved just what programming for kids beyond just reading and math can be and do, and Enjolras is going to have to write a letter to the editor at some point about arts programs in schools, as he's been meaning to do for a while.

“Plan diabolical plans _later_ ,” R mutters in his ear over the sound of a whole room full of parents telling their sons and daughters just how wonderful they were. “Smile now.”

“I'm smiling, it was wonderful,” Enjolras objects.

Grantaire raises his eyebrows. “I figured you looked down on this kind of thing.”

“Never. Not when the kids obviously have so much fun. I'm just not that much good at helping.”

“Well, how about this? Next time you can help me with the sets. You're becoming a pretty decent finger-painter.”

“Just what I always wanted.” Enjolras breaks to tell one of his fifth graders, playing some kind of candy in a brightly colored wrapper, just how wonderful she was, and is pleased when Grantaire chimes in. She beams at them and rockets off to get compliments from Combeferre, who's standing with Courfeyrac while Courfeyrac attempts to find the parents of a toddler who's attached himself to his leg.

“Think we're going to get any work out of them tomorrow?” Grantaire asks.

“Not a bit. It's always like that the day before break, though. My kids are just spending the day writing cards for the nursing home at the edge of town, since we did a correspondence unit in language arts recently. I'll run them by the home between school and the party.”

“That's a great idea. Mine are decorating construction paper wreaths. It's a fairly traditional craft, I figured—yes, Isaac, you were awesome, maybe you shouldn't have tried to bite Mary that hard though?” Enjolras blinks and looks down at the kindergartener whose appearance he completely missed. “Best rat ever. Do you want to go find your mom?” That makes the kindergartener look around, somewhat distraught, and Grantaire picks him up. “Come on, let's go. Sorry, Mr. E, we'll talk later.”

“Of course,” Enjolras says, waving them off and wandering in the direction of a knot of sixth graders all exclaiming over the flowers their Sugar Plum Fairy got from her parents (he can tell already there are going to be wounded egos to soothe tomorrow, he's very glad there's only one more day until break). He regrets having to stop talking to Grantaire a little, but there's no real reason for that, so he shoves it down and makes sure he's smiling his brightest when he goes over to congratulate everyone on a good show.


	5. The Holiday Party

Friday evening, the holiday party is already in full swing when Enjolras gets there. The staff has taken over the conference room, though the big table has been moved out of it in favor of a few smaller ones holding all the finger foods people brought, and it's decorated so much Enjolras isn't sure an inch of wall space is showing. There's tinsel, and cloth wall hangings that must be Cosette's work, and not to his surprise but certainly to his regret, there's mistletoe hung sporadically throughout the room.

“No,” he tells Courfeyrac when he comes sweeping over to the door in a Santa hat and a gift bow instead of a tie.

“You are no fun,” Courfeyrac accuses, but he lets Enjolras through the door without kissing him, so Enjolras doesn't mind much.

Everyone seems to be merry on more than just the usual deliriousness of suddenly being on break, which Enjolras attributes mostly to the bottle of probably-alcoholic cider that's mostly empty on one of the tables. Marius is crooning quietly along with “All I Want for Christmas Is You” on the radio, Valjean is wearing a Santa coat, Cosette has apparently decided to dress entirely like an elf, and even Combeferre, looking long-suffering, has a string of battery-powered lights around his neck.

“You're the last one here!” Musichetta says from behind him, bestowing a kiss on his cheek and a pair of reindeer antlers attached to a headband on his head. Enjolras thinks about objecting, but fears what worse tortures there might be in store if he says no. His only concession to the holiday was to wear a red jacket. “We've been waiting and waiting for you to be here so we can do the reveals for who gave what gift.”

“She only got here three minutes ago, don't listen to her,” says Grantaire from behind him, and Enjolras spins to find him grinning, holding a steaming mug that smells like cocoa and wearing a truly horrendous Christmas sweater. He's flanked by Jehan, who's wearing a vest that looks like a neatly-wrapped present a good deal tighter than his usual. “Though we would like to know, so we can have a proper party afterwards.”

“I got held up talking to Mr. Myriel at the nursing home, and then I had to go home and grab my jacket and my vegetable platter before I came. Speaking of which.” He slides away from the little knot of people and sets the vegetables and dip down on one of the less laden tables, grabbing a little pita bread and hummus as he goes.

Valjean clears his throat for silence a few minutes later, after Joly practically chased Bossuet under the mistletoe and got his foot stepped on for his troubles and after Éponine has pulled out a second bottle of cider from under the table and made sure everyone's cup is full if they haven't already fended her off by having a non-alcoholic beverage at the read. “I thought we should all go around and say who our gift exchange partners were this year,” he says with a beaming smile and a look that says it isn't optional. “I'll even begin. I drew Musichetta's name, and gave her perfume, though I admit I had help deciding on that.”

Musichetta grins. “And I'm wearing it tonight! Thank you, Valjean. Does that mean I'm next?” He gestures for her to continue. “Well then. I had Fantine, and I gave her a hand-decorated ukelele.”

“You did the decorations yourself? It's beautiful.” Fantine gives Musichetta a hug before she continues. “I had Combeferre, and I gave him Bill Nye DVDs, since I was told he enjoys the show.”

“I do. And so will my students, now.” Combeferre smiles. “Which makes it my turn, I suppose. I had Courfeyrac, and I—”

“Are a wonderful human being,” Courfeyrac finishes, throwing his arm around Combeferre's shoulders. “And a sneak. I should have known it was you, it was too awesome to be anyone else's.” He clears his throat after a second's pause that's only kept from being awkward by the sound of the radio cheerfully playing “Do They Know It's Christmastime” in the background (Enjolras may smash it. If there's a holiday song he can't stand, it's that one). “And I had the lovely Mr. Pontmercy, who received a coupon for a meal for two at a certain restaurant, and I feel I should not give more details than that because someone's being a little shy.”

Marius is about the color of a tomato, so Enjolras assumes it has something to do with Cosette and decides to ignore it. “I had Enjolras!” Marius blurts. Enjolras is suddenly and inexplicably nervous to explain his own gift even while Marius stumbles on. “I gave him a cactus. Though Courfeyrac helped.”

“I named it Robespierre,” says Enjolras, and wants to kick himself for how stupid that sounded even though it makes Grantaire snort out a laugh. “But thank you, Marius, you may have found a plant I can't kill. I had Grantaire. Though I suppose my gift for him was all of our gift, at least a little.”

“You … right, of course you did,” says Grantaire, and gives his cocoa a longing look before swallowing a few gulps. “Thank you. I love it. As I'm sure you know. I had Bossuet, who got a breadbox. An inappropriately-used one, if I hear correctly.”

Bossuet grins, which is really all the answer anyone needs to that, and Enjolras ignores him in favor of looking at Grantaire, who's looking anywhere _but_ Enjolras. Which means he must have done something wrong, there's no other explanation than that, but he can't think of what it is. Is it just that R resents getting a gift he likes from Enjolras of all people? It must be, but he's been friendly too, these past few weeks. It seems odd. He tunes back in just in time for Bahorel to say, with great aplomb, “And I gave Joly a boyfriend and a girlfriend for Christmas.”

“Excuse you,” says Musichetta. “We gave ourselves.”

“But I gave him the leather pants, tell me you would have made a move without those.”

“I gave Feuilly gift certificates!” Joly says loudly, and everyone moves on to laughing at his red face and Bahorel's smugness except Enjolras and Grantaire. But if Grantaire isn't going to meet his eyes Enjolras can't ignore the rest of the acknowledgments, that's not at all polite, so he forces his attention over to Feuilly.

“Good ones,” Feuilly contributes. “Not boring ones. I had Éponine, and I gave her ballroom dancing lessons. I hope you like them, Éponine?”

“They're great. I haven't exactly got a partner, but I think they'll be fun.”

“I can help you with that,” Feuilly offers, and Enjolras has to raise his eyebrows, because he wasn't expecting that. “Unless you prefer to take Gavroche.”

“You're fine,” says Éponine, and Enjolras doesn't think he's seen her blush before, but she's doing it now, refusing to let it make her duck her head. “I had Cosette,” she says when Courfeyrac's finished whooping.

Cosette, to everyone's surprise but mostly Éponine's by the look of it, starts looking teary. “The scarf was lovely, thank you,” she says, and goes over and hugs Éponine, which seems to make her uncomfortable but pleased judging by her reaction. “We should start a knitting group. You can come over to my apartment, I'll teach you a few more things. If you want to learn? I'd love to teach you.”

“That's fine,” Éponine says, and pats her on the back a few times before disengaging. Enjolras doesn't think he's ever understood her so well.

Cosette clears her throat in a manner very reminiscent of her father and smoothes down her elf skirt. “I had Jehan, and I sewed him the vest he's wearing. So I'm glad he likes it!”

“It's wonderful,” Jehan assures her. “I wanted to wear it to school today but I figured I would save it for the party. And it seems I'm the one to bring us full circle, because I had you, Mr. Valjean. I hope you liked the pocketwatch?”

“It's in my pocket right now,” Valjean assures him. “And thank you all for your thoughtfulness and for indulging me in my desire to do this. It seems you all gave each other good presents, and I'm glad to hear it. Now, I'm not going to make a speech, so I'll just tell you to enjoy the night for as long as you want, as long as you have someone to drive you home.”

Enjolras takes the opportunity to load up a plate of finger foods, mixing dessert and savory snacks without much care for getting frosting on his carrots or hummus on his brownies. Combeferre always makes faces at him for mixing his foods up, but he can't really be bothered to do otherwise. He thanks Marius again, more privately, for the cactus, and then promptly loses Marius when he wanders off to finally ask Cosette for dinner (that is, once he pries her away from holding Éponine's hands and looking teary). In one corner, well away from mistletoe, Combeferre is explaining something to Courfeyrac with big hand gestures while Courfeyrac laughs at him, and in another, much closer to some mistletoe, Jehan is talking to Bahorel, eating a brownie and bright pink (he's going to have to talk to Combeferre, ask if he's been missing that or if it's a new development. Enjolras has never claimed to be observant, but he does like to know about what his friends are doing). Feuilly and Joly and Fantine are talking, and Bossuet and Musichetta have found mistletoe as well, and Enjolras looks around for the person who's missing just long enough to know that he must have gone somewhere else.

He only lets a minute pass by before he follows, plate still in hand.

*

Grantaire thinks about leaving. It would be stupid and Éponine or Bossuet would feel the need to come after him and he doesn't want to explain, so he doesn't, but he thinks about it.

Instead, he takes his cocoa (non-alcoholic, he knew this wasn't going to be a good night to drink, not if he wants his guard up at all, and there Enjolras went and dismantled it for him anyway, rude) and a cupcake, undoubtedly one baked by Cosette, and retreats to the art room. It's a clear, cold night and he leaves the light off, just opening the curtains enough to stare up at the moon and hate himself a little for being a cliché.

He shouldn't be surprised when there's a knock on the door less than five minutes later, and he shouldn't be surprised when it's Enjolras behind the knock and not anyone else. Enjolras was watching him, after he said what his present was. He knows Grantaire is upset. Probably baffled as to why, but too bad for him. “You left,” Enjolras says.

Grantaire could explain. He thinks there's a line in one of Joly's favorite Christmas films that makes sense. _And at Christmas you tell the truth_ , he thinks it goes. Too bad Grantaire doesn't live in a romantic comedy. He doesn't want to tell Enjolras that it was bad enough when he thought Enjolras had just finger-painted a picture for him. Knowing he coordinated a whole school into that kind of effort isn't surprising (it's never surprising, what Enjolras can make people do), but it isn't fair, either. Enjolras is already beautiful and passionate and smart. He isn't allowed to be kind as well. “I needed to get out for a minute.”

“Away from me,” Enjolras ventures, and he must be determined to have this conversation Grantaire was hoping to avoid for the rest of his time at Musain. “Is it that … would you rather the gift was from someone else?”

“Did you just start hanging around me because you wanted gift ideas? And then for painting lessons?”

“A little.” Grantaire flinches, glad the dark must be hiding at least some of his reaction. God, he feels like one of Enjolras's students, one of the ones just discovering hormones who takes that as an excuse to sulk in corners. He shouldn't have expected Enjolras to ever be anything but honest. “But, R, I figured out what I wanted to give you ages ago. I did that picture ages ago. I stayed around. I liked spending time with you when we weren't arguing. Did I do something wrong? I'd like to apologize.” And where does he get off, looking earnest and well-meaning and gorgeous wearing a pair of reindeer antlers?

“You are such an idiot. And don't apologize to me, you really didn't do anything. I'm just an idiot too, that's all. Go back to the party. I'll sulk for a little while and then I'll be back and smile and congratulate everyone on making out and offer to be DD. You don't need to worry about me.”

“I'm not. Well, I am, a little. Can I join you, though? You don't mind?”

Grantaire makes an elaborate gesture of invitation. It's hard to say no to Enjolras. That's just something he's coming to accept. “Sure. Sorry if I'm bad company, though.”

“You never are.” Enjolras sits next to him on the radiator next to the window, putting his plate of food and his drink down and then pulling his knee up to his chin. “Do you wish someone else had pulled your name out, given you that present?”

“No.”

“You're sure acting like it.”

“I'm not good at preparing for the best possible scenario. This isn't quite the best, but I still didn't prepare for it.” The best would have been Enjolras pulling his name and giving him a kiss and meaning it. Or Grantaire pulling Enjolras's name and having the courage to declare his love along with his gift and Enjolras not rejecting him. Enjolras pulling his name and giving him a sweet, thoughtful gift is still amazing, but it still leave just enough bittersweet that he can believe it.

“What would the best have been?”

“Please stop it. I'm in a weird mood, it's fine.”

“I don't want to make you uncomfortable. Should I get Éponine for you?”

“Leave her, let's see if she and Feuilly join the mistletoe brigade tonight.”

“Seems like everyone is, if those two are. Maybe not Fantine and Valjean, but everyone else was looking cozy when I left.”

Grantaire snorts. “Fantine and Valjean have been dating behind our backs since last Memorial Day weekend, come on, get with the program.” Enjolras stares at him, but Grantaire goes back to looking out the window. The moon reflecting off the snow is so bright he can barely hear the stars. “So that means just you and me as the last holdouts, doesn't it? If it really is everyone succumbing to the inevitable?”

“Maybe. I suppose. We don't … that wasn't the conclusion I think I was coming here hoping to draw.”

That doesn't make sense except for the horrible, wonderful, stomach-fluttering ways it does. “You're going to have to explain that.”

“I don't know how, exactly. It all sounds stupid, and I'm only just starting to parse it myself. I don't think I could have given a gift like that to anyone else.”

“You still aren't making sense.”

“I should have brought mistletoe, that at least makes things clear,” Enjolras says, sounding waspish, and then he freezes, like he hadn't meant to say that out loud.

Grantaire can feel the blood rushing in his ears. This might be the best case scenario after all, and what, _what_ is he meant to do with that? “I'd rather … if someone wants to kiss me, I'd rather they didn't wait for the excuse of some plant. I'd rather they just—”

Enjolras kisses him, as simple as that. He takes Grantaire's face in his hands and leans carefully across the space between them, putting his foot down on the floor so he can do it and almost putting his knee on his place, and then his mouth is on Grantaire's, his lips moving against Grantaire's, and Grantaire lets out a noise and pulls him closer. “You too?” Enjolras asks against his mouth, mumbling it against kisses.

“Forever,” Grantaire says, pulling away even though it pains him because the words deserve their full weight. “Long before you showed up at my door and asked about finger-painting.”

“I'll make up for the lost time, all of it,” Enjolras says, Enjolras _swears_ , and Grantaire has never heard him go back on anything he says in that tone of voice, so this time he's the one to take Enjolras's face in his hands and draw him in, to pull him closer until one of them knocks Enjolras's plate and Grantaire's cup down to the floor. As far as Grantaire is concerned, they can pick it up later. They only have so much time before someone comes looking for them.

“I can't believe you're serious,” he says when Enjolras tips his head back and kisses an oh-so-gentle path down his throat.

Enjolras makes an annoyed noise when he has to remove his mouth from Grantaire's person, which is the first sign Grantaire has had that any of this is real. If Enjolras still gets annoyed with him, all is well with the world. “Would I really be doing this if I weren't serious?”

Grantaire considers that. It isn't as though Enjolras knows this would be his favorite Christmas gift, so he thinks he's probably pretty safe. “Probably not,” he allows, and pulls Enjolras's mouth back up to his. If he wants to make up for lost time, he doesn't want to do it talking.

*

By the time Enjolras returns to the party, after picking up the mess of snacks on Grantaire's floor, after his lips are kiss-bruised and his phone has buzzed with texts from their friends asking if there's been a murder, or two murders, or a murder-suicide, no less than four times, he feels like he's walking on air. Grantaire, hand in his as they walk down the hallway, looks as though he's in much the same mood.

Enjolras means to ask before they walk through the door if Grantaire wants everyone to know yet, but the decision is made for them when they round the last corner and found that at least part of the party has moved out into the hallway outside the conference room. Joly, Bossuet, and Musichetta seem fairly wrapped up in each other, but Bossuet's mouth is free and as soon as he sees their joined hands he's squeaking loud enough to get the attention of the other two, and that's the end of any attempt at secrecy. Not that Enjolras minds.

Within seconds, the party has swallowed them again, and there's a commotion of hugs and kisses and it's a miracle he isn't separated from Grantaire in the fray. Cosette asks him how he got hummus on his jeans and Combeferre smiles at him over everyone else's heads and Valjean claps him on the shoulder before he manages to extricate himself and lead Grantaire over so they can get more snacks.

The party got wilder in their absence, maybe cider or maybe just everyone getting keyed up. Marius is holding as tightly to Cosette's hand as Enjolras is to Grantaire's, and Enjolras usually has very little patience for Marius, but he smiles at him anyway and mouths his congratulations. The music is louder, now, and Feuilly is leading Éponine through some kind of twirl as they attempt a waltz to some Christmas tune Enjolras doesn't recognize. She's smiling at Feuilly, and Grantaire is smiling at her, and it seems everyone is smiling at someone.

Courfeyrac is the one who taps him on the shoulder and finally dares to drag him away from Grantaire (who immediately steals Musichetta from her boyfriends as they come sheepishly back in and starts doing something that might be the tango). “Look at the two of you, finally working your problems out.”

“I wasn't aware there were problems, which might have something to do with how long that's taken,” Enjolras says, trying to sound dry and mostly managing to sound a little manic.

“Well, I for one say well done to the both of you. You're fabulous people and I give you my blessing.”

Enjolras submits to Courfeyrac hugging him, since that seems the only natural progression from there. “And what about you? You think I didn't notice you and Combeferre before I left?”

“Nothing yet. Maybe soon.” Courfeyrac grins at his raised eyebrow. “What, you thought I was going to deny it? No, we've been working that way for a while. A Christmas miracle seemed just the ticket. Who knows? If we spin it just right nobody will have to go home alone tonight.” He nods over at where Bahorel is convincing Jehan to join him on the makeshift dance floor while the music switches over to “Carol of the Bells,” which doesn't seem like a good dancing song. “Want to take a bet on how many jokes Bahorel makes about unwrapping presents before Jehan gives in and drags him out?”

Enjolras doesn't even have time to say that he wants no part in the bet before they're interrupted by the arrival of Combeferre with two cups of cider, one of which he passes to Courfeyrac. “Congratulations,” he tells Enjolras, and Enjolras loses a final piece of tension he didn't even know he had. As long as Combeferre approves, he knows he's doing the right thing.

“And to you,” Enjolras says, because he sees no reason to beat around the bush.

“No sense of subtlety.” Courfeyrac shakes his head sadly, but not before he peeks a look at Combeferre. Enjolras will ask himself and them how he missed this later, but for now he's too happy, for them and for himself.

“Sometimes subtlety is overrated,” says Combeferre. “Do you want to dance? It seems like the thing to do at the moment. If you don't mind being left on your own, that is.”

“Go ahead.” Enjolras leans against the wall and watches everyone around the room. Valjean and Fantine are against the opposite wall, talking and sharing a plate. Joly, Bossuet, and Musichetta seem to have decided to sit down on the floor in the corner (not coincidentally under some mistletoe), the three of them a pile of limbs. Éponine and Feuilly are dancing, still, laughing in each other's arms, and part when Marius taps Éponine on the shoulder and offers her a dance, letting Feuilly take Cosette for a minute. Bahorel has Jehan on the dance floor, now, and Jehan is whispering something in his ear that has put a dumbstruck expression on his face. Combeferre and Courfeyrac join the others, taking up an easy ballroom position and then not doing much dancing at all, just standing there and talking.

Enjolras doesn't even have to wonder where Grantaire is before there's someone at his shoulder. “Come on, if everyone else is dancing, we're going to dance too.”

“I'm not very good at it,” Enjolras warns, putting down his second plate of snacks before it can meet the same end as the first.

“I'll teach you. And really, who's going to care? Nobody, that's who.”

When Grantaire holds his hands out, Enjolras takes them. “You are a much better present than Robespierre,” he says, but quietly, in case Marius is listening (not that he thinks much could make Marius less happy tonight).

“I would be flattered except that I know you're talking about the cactus.”

“You might be better than the other Robespierre too,” Enjolras says thoughtfully, letting R pull him into some semblance of a dance position. He's predictably terrible at it, but Grantaire is smiling like he might never stop, so he can put up with a little embarrassment.

“Stop it, you flatterer.” Grantaire steers him a few steps to the left and then steals a kiss. “Mistletoe,” he says when he pulls away.

Enjolras kisses him again, since they haven't moved yet. “We could dance right here,” he offers, but he doesn't mind when Grantaire laughs and twirls him out into the middle of the dance floor when the music changes to “The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” and everyone starts trying to replicate the student routine from the night before.

There's time for mistletoe later, after all, and New Year's after that, and whatever else follows from there. For now, Enjolras is content to stumble over his own feet and hold Grantaire's hand, and it seems like he isn't the only one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed! And Merry Christmas to all who celebrate it. <3


End file.
